


Stolen Memories

by sleep_deprived_me



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: (eventually) - Freeform, Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amanda's (Detroit Become Human) A+ Parenting, Androids treated as objects, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anxiety, Bad Parent Amanda (Detroit: Become Human), Betaed, Bullying, Canon-Typical Violence, Connor (Detroit: Become Human) is In Denial About Deviancy, Connor Deserves Happiness, Connor loves her though, Connor whump, Deviant Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Father-Son Relationship, Gavin Reed Being an Asshole, Gavin Reed Redemption, Gen, Good Parent Hank Anderson, Hank Anderson Hates Androids, Hank Anderson Swears, How Do I Tag, Humiliation, I do as well, Identity Issues, Long, Mind Manipulation, My First Fanfic, POV Multiple, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred, Slow Build, Xenophobia, mostly angst, seriosly, she's a bitch
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2020-02-26 07:33:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 58
Words: 342,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18711952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleep_deprived_me/pseuds/sleep_deprived_me
Summary: Connor was sure it would succeed in every mission given to it, regardless of what it would be: catching deviants, saving hostages, or integrating with humans. Being an obedient, unfeeling machine.Turns out it doesn't succeed in any.It is constantly failing everybody around it, everyone who has ever had any faith in it or hoped for its help. Connor just doesn't seem to escape being inferior. Broken.It just can't help being just itself. And Amanda deserves so much better than that.Meanwhile, Lieutenant Hank Anderson is dealing with the android partner he has been assigned against his will. The man has been trusted with a task of keeping an eye on the RK800 - a new prototype capable of advanced combat, eliminating difficult targets, stalking humans and androids alike like a predator. Should the android deviate, the consequences would be tragic. And the man is just beginning to notice the changes within Connor.But the RK800 is not the only one undergoing them.





	1. 70 storeys

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone... umm, help? I've never written a fanfic, hell, I've never written anything at all, and certainly not in english. I'm sorry for all misspells, errors or creative grammar constructions, but this is quite different than essays and exams. I would appreciate feedback on everything, and especially with this forum. If I post something inorrectly, please, let me know and I'll try to fix it... (ekhm, I also don't know how to post artwork, but I guess, it's not that important for now)  
> This has been semi-mildly-just-a-little inspired by a lot of fics, but the most prominent being 50 Deaths by The_Ace_Anon, Irrelevant Data by LibertineFlake and yet another Kamski Test fic, but I cant remember the exact title, I'm so sorry. Anyway, the inspirations are so minor, that I don't post this as child-work or whatever.  
> I will try to post every week, but can't promise anything. I have a few chapters pre-written, sooo it may work for a while, but I want some feedback too so I couldn't wait untill I have everything finished.  
> Enjoy, and please, let me know how you liked it. It's gonna be different from the game here and there, but I'm keeping canon Connor's scenes in there too.
> 
> From chapter 32 onward, beta-read by KittyLue, whom I thank a lot!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The RK800 embarks on its first mission outside CyberLife. A hostage situation on the rooftop of a skyscraper.  
>  _Calculating time until hitting the ground...._

The elevator slowly ascended as a quiet, repeatable sound filled the air. A coin was being tossed as a mean of final calibration before the very first mission that had been given to the android standing perfectly still in the middle of the platform. It was going to risk it existence. It knew that this assignment involved hostage situation and the floor it had been told to go to was the very top of 70-storey skyscraper. The fastest processors ever given to any CyberLife android had no problem connecting the dots. But it wasn't afraid, it was literally _made_ for the job, which meant that there was no possibility of failure. Besides, it couldn't be afraid anyway.  


It focused on the next coin trick. The distraction was welcomed.  


Before the door opened, the android adjusted its tie and put on polite expression in order to fulfill one of the roles encoded into the very base of the software making up its mind and look more appealing to integrate with humans seamlessly. The integration was very important, the programming stated. Connor would not fail.  


Stepping into the apartment, the android quickly scanned its surroundings, eager to complete the objectives flawlessly. A motion drew its attention to a fish tank shattered with bullets. On the floor next to it, a fish that must have fallen from it when the container had been destroyed, tossed its small body around as if in pain. Connor crouched and tilted its head, scanning the animal thoroughly. It had never seen a dwarf gourami before. Actually, it had never seen any living fish before. Extending its hand, Connor picked the fish gently and examined it further. The tank was still holding some water, and the android put the fish into the container with little thought. Fish needed water to live, android's processors stated. The gourami corrected its position and rewarded Connor with a quick colorful flash of glittering scales, before hiding between overgrown plants in the fish tank. Connor stared at the fish tank for a short while, waiting for the fish to appear again, but gourami was nowhere to be seen. A red flash in android's vision reminded Connor that it was wasting time. This action was not efficient. Connor moved away from the fish tank.  


It scanned the surroundings again and moved to a photo depicting the family the apartment belonged to. As Connor was putting the object down, its audio processors caught loud screams approaching from the interior. A crying woman staggered towards the android and clung to its jacket, begging it to save her child.  


"Please... You gotta save my little girl! Ple... Wait...." She seemed to only then notice Connors armband, jacket and LED clearly identifying it as a machine. "You.. Y-you're sending... an ANDROID?"  


Her expression drastically changed from a pleading, desperate one to something that Connor was only able to attach to dread and hatred. Connor took a quick, small step back as the woman nearly clawed at it, but was quickly restrained by a SWAT team member escorting her out of the apartment. He clearly had problems with her, trying to show comfort and keep the woman from attacking Connor at the same time. The soldier dragged her towards the exit and the android wondered if she would damage it, had she been given a chance.  


"Why aren't you sending a REAL person?!? Don-don't let that... THING near her! Don't let it, an android... Send a human! Not this... NO! KEEP IT AWAY!! KEEP IT A-" her screams were cut short by the elevator door closing. Connor watched her with a blank expression. Her reaction made sense to it. A faulty machine had taken her child hostage, machine just like Connor, but the difference was that Connor knew its place. It was not faulty. But again, there was a great deal of irrationality to her actions as well. Connor was expendable, unlike any of the SWAT team members. It was logical to send it instead of a human.  


Connor made its way through the apartment towards the human whom it identified as Captain Allen, the man in charge of the operation. The android waited politely for a brief silence between the two SWAT soldiers, not being allowed by the programming to interrupt important conversations between humans, but speaking as soon as it goT the chance to begin.  


"Captain Allen? My name is Connor, I was send by CyberLife to act as-"  


"Yeah, sure." Captain interrupted, barely even turning towards Connor."I don't care. Take down the android and save the child, that's all that matters."  


Connor nodded. "I was about to ask for the information regarding the deviant. I could use-" Captain Allen broke in again with frustrated grunt and pushed himself from the chair he was sitting on while coordinating the operation via a terminal. He towered quite significantly over rather slim but relatively tall on its own android, as the programming stated that Connor should not impose any challenge to its superiors and always bow its head while being threatened to. Captain gripped front of android's jacket and held Connor higher to meet his gaze. "The deviant has already shot down two of my people. I swear, If you gonna ask me for its fucking name or some bullshit, I'm packing my bullet into your skull. All we know is that it's dangerous and armed. Now, fuck off and do your job."  


He dropped Connor down and turned away to the terminal in order to resume his work, not even sparing the android another look.  


"I will start investigating, then." Connor quickly moved away from the captain, seeing that its presence was clearly causing distraction to SWAT team. Upsetting humans was against its integration protocols.  


It knew that chances of success were to slim to begin with, but the training Connor had underwent in its previous iterations within CyberLife stated that the possibility to appeal to deviants and other criminals tended to rise, should they be approached with understanding and compassion. Connor was reluctant to waste more time before completing its mission, but gathered it would be wise and beneficial to come to know that pushed the deviant to taking the child hostage.  


Connor quickly moved across the apartment, meticulously investigating clues, and was able to conclude that the deviant had been emotionally attached to the family that owned it. This was peculiar to the android detective: a machine, even a faulty one, was unlikely to be so naive and ignorant. Connor knew it was impossible for an android to be considered equal to a human, and for good reasons. But the android, whose name was Daniel, seemed to believe that the family loved it back. Deviants were able to simulate emotions within their own systems, but to hope they could be accepted as members of families, targets of humans' affection? It was hard to comprehend, but thankfully, Connor had a powerful processor.  


Daniel had been about to be replaced by newer model. As soon as it had found out, the deviant had taken its Master's gun, killed him and took the child hostage. The body of the first responder who had taken a bullet to the heart trying to protect the child from the faulty machine was already cold, laying on the floor of the living room. His gun was under the table, and Connor picked it up. If the success of the mission would call for quick decisions, the negotiator needed to be ready. Before being killed, the policeman had actually managed to take a shot at the deviant and bright blue thirium still stained the glass of the windows overlooking the terrace. Connor sampled it with two fingers and pressed to its tongue, leaving sharp, metallic taste on the sensors located there. PL600. Housekeeping model, its serial number had quickly been catalogued into "evidence regarding deviants" folder Connor had in its memory.  


Two SWAT soldiers moved aside allowing Connor to exit on the terrace. It was ready. It would not fail.  


The air was heavy with whirling sound made by helicopters swarming around the skyscraper. Wind blew angrily and pulled Connor's jacket as the android stepped on the terrace. It was welcomed by a bullet to its arm, immediately after entering the sight of the deviant. Android's LED circled red for a second as it acknowledged the damage. The prototype had been given sensitive pressure receptors allowing it to be aware of even the slightest damage to its shell, but all the data was being transmitted straight to CyberLife technicians overviewing the footage. Connor could not feel anything apart from powerful thrust of energy.  


Emma screamed, as her former possession held her firmly, not allowing the girl to break free even if she would try again. The child was visibly exhausted. Brightness flooded Connor's optical units as helicopters washed over the terrace with powerful searchlights. A soldier's body was floating face-down in a pool, the water around had already been marred by a red cloud. Another downed man on the left, blood was still flowing from the wound. _Chaos_. A strong blow of wind sent two deckchairs flying off the roof. Connor instinctively preconstructed its own way down. Red flash of error.  


[SOFTWARE INSTABILITY]  


"Hi Daniel!" Connor rose its hands and began to slowly approach the deviant. It was perched on the very verge of the terrace, barriers preventing anyone from falling had been destroyed around the machine and the hostage. Connor was sure that had it been a human, they would certainly had lost their balance and fallen ages ago.  


"H.. How do you know my name?!" Daniel looked shocked, pulled Emma closer. Her knees were grazed and bleeding, she was missing a shoe, her face wet with tears and thirium from Daniel's wound.  


"I know a lot of things about you" Connor was calm. It couldn't be afraid anyway.  


"Y-you don't know shit!" Daniel was outraged. it waved its gun at Connor.  


"I know You feel betrayed. I know you loved them. All you wanted in return was a little bit of affection, loyalty, isn't that right?" Connor watched carefully the expression on deviant's face. It noted that Daniel's featured softened minutely. The right path."You were to be replaced... After all you've done for them." Connor didn't understand how could Daniel have been stupid enough to believe it deserved anything else, but the negotiator could play along. CyberLife's programmers made it capable of manipulating others and lying perfectly.  


"Shut up!" Daniel shook its head and pressed the gun against girl's temple. Connor froze. "I thought I mattered... I thought I was... part of the family, loved... They used to make me feel special... But I, I was NOTHING to them, just a tool and a toy. I'm not even broken, and they are throwing me away because a new, shiny model is now being discounted..."  


Connor frowned at obviously flawed statement regarding the lack of technical problems with the deviant. "I know you feel hurt and scared, but those are just errors in your software! Let Emma go and we will fix you! No more fear, no more pain! You're defective, but everything will be alright, if you come with me..."  


That was a mistake. Apparently, Daniel was convinced that its defects were desirable. What a ridiculous thought. It was a _deviant_. And it believed it was all right, as if it wasn't a _bad_ thing.  


A bullet hit Connor's shoulder and the negotiator teetered. Emma screamed, horrified, seeing as her only hope gets shot at.  


"Next one will be through your forehead if you name me defective again, you fucking machine!"  


Connor watched the predicted chances of success drop significantly. It decided to change approach."I'm sorry... I didn't mean to hurt you further. I just want to help you." Connor looked Daniel in the eyes and put on sincere expression. Daniel was pressing the barrel of the gun against girl's temple again. "I know you don't want to do this. You've been forced to, by your suffering and fear. You could blame your owners, yes, but Emma? She has likely done nothing wrong... She cared for you, I'm sure..."  


Daniel bit its lip. The LED on deviant's temple didn't for once escape red, it was just switching between steady light and blinking. As opposed to Connor's collected and calm blue, the thing was a mess. Distress evident on the face, expression twisted in fear and pain. The deviant lowered the gun from Emma's head and aimed the weapon at Connor again. It was an improvement. Connor was expendable.  


The android began to approach slowly again, but turning its steps slightly left. Scans picked up vitals of the downed policeman lying on the terrace. He had a dangerous bullet wound in his left arm and was quickly bleeding out. Connor gestured at the man.  


"His loosing blood... He will die if I don't do anything" The android said, crouching beside the officer and taking off its tie. A gunshot rang and the bullet almost brushed Connor's fingers as he reached towards the wound.  
"Touch him an I'll kill you!"  


Connor couldn't hold a dark smile. "You can't kill me. I'm not alive"  


And it wasn't.  


Connor applied a tourniquet on the arm of the injured policeman and stood up. Daniel was clearly upset over Connor's disobedience, but it didn't shoot again. Yet.  


Instead, Daniel wavered and shook its head. The helicopter flew over them again making terrible noise. "UhhhHHHHH I can't STAND IT ANYMORE! Make it STOP!"  


Connor considered the odds of success for a second, then waved its hand to dismiss the helicopter. The chances of manipulating the deviant were still alarmingly low, despite the android's best attempts to placate Daniel. 65%.  


"Look, I did what you wanted me to do. We can work out a solutio-"  


"Don't come any closer! Another step forward and I'll shoot."  


"Daniel, listen to me" Connor made sure to sound sincerely "I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to talk. Let Emma go. She has done noth-"  


"No! Sh-e, she could protect me, they would have listened to her! All she would have to do was say 'no, I want Daniel, I don't want anyone else...' All she had to do was keep her promise to ' _the coolest android in the world_ '..." A gun was yet again pressed against child's skull. Emma whimpered and sobbed pathetically.  


"D-Daniel, nno...."  


Connor considered using its own gun but Emma was so dangerously close to the ledge that shooting the deviant would likely mean death for her. "Daniel. Just talk to me, I want to help you..."  


"No. I don't want to talk to anyone. I want a car. I will let her go, but only when I'm outside the city. I'm not stupid. I know you will kill me, I know... there are snipers everywhere... As soon as I let her go, I'm dead." _Ok, you may be naive but you have eyes._  


Connor realized it had the last chance. The deviant was aware of the danger, but chances of convincing it were still higher than lower. If only it could get the deviant to trust it, if the girl were even a little closer to the terrace, if the deviant wasn't so distressed and hurt....  


"Daniel, please, step of the ledge... The car... It's impossible, but I assure you, we will not hurt you..."  


"N-no....no..."  


Connors eyes grew wide as it observed subtle shifts in David's posture. It didn't understand. The odds were not ideal, but still over 50%. How could this be happening? Why wasn't its approach working? The deviant still held Emma tight. No. Connor would not fail. It preconstructed a solution. Connor would not fail. Saving the girl was all that mattered. Connor would not fail. _I will not fail._  


It leapt forward and in an inhumanly quick motion gripped Emma's hand. The child began to scream in horror as she realized what was happening. Her body already was beyond the verge of the terrace, leaning backwards with Daniel. Connor yanked her forward but had to sacrifice its own momentum to switch places with her. The negotiator hit Daniel's chest with its shoulder, distancing them from Emma, who landed on the terrace, still dangerously close to the verge.  


And Connor could feel the ground escaping its feet.  


The way down went exactly as Connor had preconstructed. Agonizingly long. Strange feeling gripped its biocomponents when gravity ceased to affect them. 70 floors passed by as the air rippled its hair and pulled the jacket around the android. Full memory upload was completed milliseconds before it's processors were shattered against the ground along with its limbs and body.  


It included both the horrible roar of air and even worse emptiness of Connor's thoughts. In that moment there was room for something in Connor's mind. But it couldn't feel that anyway.


	2. MEMORY STATUS: INTEGRAL

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor regarded the Zen Garden as one of the safest places known to it. It would always find peace and wise advices there.  
> It would learn and improve on its mistakes. It would not fail again.

"Shit, I thought it would manage. The procedures and protocols were flawless, what went wrong?"

"Nothing. Deviants are unpredictable. I've seen the footage. It did well, it's not your fault."

"Ha, easy for you to say so, you're not the one who was being lectured for the last two days on how the precious RK prototype bearing _your_ pieces of coding had been destroyed on its first mission outside the simulated environment." A man in white lab gown pressed his hand against a sensor on a wall and heavy steel door slid open. After entering the room he faced his colleague, who turned the lights on and began to boot up computers and monitors occupying most of the interior.

"Did you at least salvage anything from it?"

"Are you kidding me?" Young, dark haired woman was clearly amused by the question. "It was a 70-storey fall. It took almost 2 hours to scrap all the pieces off the pavement. RK800's shell may be harder to destroy in comparison with other androids, but hell, I've never seen it so messed up, and I was there when they ran explosion resilience tests."

The programmer chuckled and sat on a chair in front of the largest monitor. Authorization had been granted and footage from android's memory began to flow through the processor. Coding appeared next to the optical data that had been recorded by machine's eyes.

"So, when's the next activation scheduled? Has your team already finished its job?"

"Well, as long as we don't find anything wrong in the recordings, we will put it back online next week. There were no hardware problems I'm aware of, so nothing really has to be changed in its shell. Well, unless this data says otherwise." The technician was looking at the footage regarding android's energy depletion and muscle efficiency and use. "Hands calibration done more than enough. All motor systems... check. All biocomponents... check? Thirium pump activity levels elevated a bit..."

"Maybe it was excited to meet its first real objective." The man joked and his colleague rolled her eyes.

"In that case, Edwin, your department seems to have a problem."

"Hey, you just said that my coding was impeccable." Edwin teased, but to no avail.

The woman ignored his comment and looked at the more elaborate data provided by biochemical subsystem built into android's thirium-flow. "Ah, just some adrenaline, or whatever those eggheads from BIO call it. Makes me wonder what is wrong with the pumps every time it appears."

Optical footage went on, scans were analyzed, processing power and its channeling picked apart and studied. The engineers meticulously observed various outputs as they had done many times before, after each test performed by the RK800.

"Why did it pick up the fish?" The woman peered at the monitor showing android's visual output.

"Curiosity. Can't really avoid wasting some time on unnecessary activities with this type of AI. It doesn't differentiate between important stuff and distractions very well yet, we haven't restrained it too much cause it's gonna be a detective, any detail may prove to be important...."

"Yeah, but it stayed there for good 10 seconds, isn't it a little bit too long?"

"Hmm... What about motor functions?"

"It didn't freeze, if that's what you're asking about."

Edwin scratched his head and looked at the code again. "There is a minor glitch, but RK's protocols quickly got rid of it. Wonders of self-checking scripts encoded into software. Nothing out of the ordinary."

They sat in silence for a while. Soft humming of powerful processors filled the air. Data, updated memory and information gathered by the RK left their traces in binary code flowing on the screens. Audio was being displayed on a separate monitor in a visual form.

_You can't kill me. I'm not alive._

"Wait... did it... smile?"

"Yeeeah... It does that sometimes." Programmer grimaced slightly, not wanting to elaborate further. It was a bit of a touchy subject among AI team.

"But... it didn't do it to appeal to the deviant. A glitch?"

"Uh, not really, I guess. Things like that... happened a few times, but the code's all right" Edwin shook his head. "We tried to find the looped line, but, frankly, it's not easily traced. Look, Megan, I don't really know all about RK's code. Part of it had been developed even before my team picked up the project. The HQ insisted on holding onto the chosen iteration of AI and implementing previously written programs , even though..." The programmer didn't finish the sentence, hoping that his colleague would let it go. He had a habit of perfecting every code he was given, and the flaw in the prototype's programming frustrated him, because he had tried and failed many times to put a finger on the source of the problem.

"Even though what?"

"Uh, even though some suggest it may be contaminated with traces of personality."

 

* * *

 

MODEL: RK800

SERIAL#: 313 248 317 - 52

BIOS: 023, REVISION 0001

FULL SYSTEM REBOOT

MEMORY UPLOAD/ ...20%

PLEASE, STAND BY.

SYSTEMS INITIALIZATION,

BIOCOMPONENTS OK

BIOSENSORS OK

AI OK

HARDWARE INTEGRITY OK

SOFTWARE STATUS STABLE

CYBERLIFE NETWORK CONNECTION STATUS STABLE

UPDATES OK

PLEASE, STAND BY.

Connor could sense its existence again.

It wasn't sure what had happened or how long was it absent from the world, but now delicate sensations slowly made their way into waking consciousness of the android. Gentle wind moved through its hair and brushed against skin on the face.

MEMORY UPLOAD/ ...100%

MEMORY UPLOAD COMPLETE

MEMORY STATUS INTEGRAL

Quiet sounds of leaves rustling in the breeze were pulling Connor's mind from the dark oblivion of non-existence. Warm ground soft with grass cradled its body that-

~~_had been SHATTERED into pieces on the ground approaching SO FAST,soHArd and DESTRUCTIVEthe force I'M falling theAIr it ROARS i Willbe DESTRO_ ~~~~~~

It took a deep, shaky breath sensing the mental subdivisions coming back online and quieting the static that appeared for a moment.

[SOFTWARE INSTABILITY DETECTED]

INITIALIZING SELF-CHECKING PROTOCOLS,

>prtcl srch: "s18761, #3345/-01"> protocol active >/prtcl<

>prtcl< software error found, initializing >/prtcl<

>prtcl< error "rA65h-2/:DSSm03" removed, SOFTWARE STABLE >/prtcl<

Familiar emptiness returned to its processors and replaced faint, unpleasant sensation that sparked from the memory. Blankness and peace yet again overtook Connors mind and corrected its code.

REBOOT COMPLETE

Connor opened its eyes.

Zen Garden was always very quiet. And so it was this time, warm and welcoming, peaceful place offering guidance and advice. Calm blue flooded Connor's vision and the android realized it was laying on the ground. Something was obstructing part of its field of view, a tall, dark object rising from the ground behind Connor's head. Sitting up, as soon as its mind was whole again, Connor oriented itself in the topography of the Garden, before turning back to examine the object that hadn't been there during its previous visits.

A tombstone.

CONNOR - MARK (I)

RK800 #313 248 317 - 51

Died at 1554 Park Avenue, Detroit

August 15th 2038

Connor could suddenly hear wind in his hair.

~~_shattered._ ~~

Another protocol was activated, rooting out minor error in the software and Connor tilted its head processing available information. There was one programmer in the team overviewing the programs entailed in RK800's code, Benson, Richard / born 02/08/1987, particularly fond of the dark sense of humor. Connor concluded that the idea of waking up on a grave after destruction must have been conceived by that man.

The android stood up and scanned its surroundings. Perfectly shaped bushes and luscious flower beds surrounded white pavement that contrasted sharply with opulent vegetation. Connor stepped on the path and strolled to one of white bridges connecting the outer part of the garden with a small island located on a peaceful lake. Gentle breeze formed small wrinkles on the surface of the water. Connor stopped for a moment and observed small shoal of koi that appeared underneath the bridge. The fish were quite different from the dwarf gourami the android remembered from its last mission. They were pretty, (objectively of course, machines could not tell whether something was beautiful or not) but the koi lacked something the gourami had. _That one was alive._

Connor proceeded onto the island and smiled politely at sight of a figure tending to bright red roses entwining an alcove. Dark-skinned woman with impeccable white outfit enriched with blue cape and complemented by intricate jewelry turned to face the android. Her black hair were braided in a glorious hairstyle and dark azure highlights matched the color scheme of her clothes.

She smiled, but her eyes remained unaffected. "Hello, Connor."

"Hello, Amanda." It waited politely for her next sentence, eager to answer all the questions. It was a standard procedure taking place after each test Connor had performed, the android recalled. That mission was a test as well and an important one too.

Amanda turned back to her roses. Connor read her body language and concluded that she wasn't pleased. She held her head lower than when she had used to while praising Connor for flawlessly passed tests before and as she faced it again, there was little warmth on her face. Connor scanned her again and again, trying to fight the negative input it suddenly sensed.

"You did very well with collecting all the clues in the apartment. It didn't take you too much time too. That was a flawless performance on your part." Her voice was as stable and emotionless as always, but Connor had advanced social protocols. It wasn't easily fooled.

Connor hung its head just a little lower examining white tiles beneath her feet, and spoke softly, sensing her disappointment. "...but."

"...But." Amanda seemed pleased at least a little more with the fact that Connor knew that it didn't manage to avoid mistakes altogether. "But, you still got destroyed. That wasn't supposed to happen."

Connor's LED spun yellow once at the mention of its demise. It tilted its head and looked at Amanda, seemingly confused. This expression was preprogrammed into it, to show android's mindset when presented with insufficient information. But it looked genuine.

"I... This time was different than previous reboots. I remember... everything..."

The woman examined android thoroughly raising her eyebrows. She was quiet for a while, studying its expression and eyes as if looking for something unsettling. "And how does this make you feel?"

Connor just furrowed its brows. Amanda was observing Connor. She wanted an answer, and Connor knew that the question was important. It hadn't a clue, though, what she wished to hear. It opted for the truth. It had learned a long time ago that Amanda could not be lied to. "It doesn't at all. I can't feel anything." _Why would she even ask? I'm an android._

The reaction apparently placated Amanda, whose expression relaxed and a small smile returned to her face, as she reached for one of many rosebuds beside her. "There have been a few changes made to your software and the connection to CyberLife serves has been improved. From now on, all your memories will be uploaded to a new body when you are destroyed. Investigative work calls for flawless recall of events and clues that may seemingly be unimportant at the first glance. Working in field also means that we can't fall back on any footage from lab cameras and our own devices so we will rely solely on your data. Thus, you will be able to keep all your memories."

Connor tilted its head again. The android didn't have many memory files from its existence up to this point. Everything was rather blurry and convoluted, marred with long periods of total blankness. The tests were all performed with RK800 models and Connor's code, while it was conscious, yet it could just barely recall outcomes of many of them. Uploading its memory to a new shell after destruction of its predecessor hadn't been so important because a lot of the experiments involved gathering information used strictly by technicians. Such assessments as, for example, 'fire and extreme heat resilience' ~~_itburned_~~ were in fact irrelevant data to Connor.

Trainings and punishments were an another story. Those they made sure that Connor remembered.

Yet, now it was all different. Connor could sense the continuality of its existence from the exact moment it had been activated before the hostage situation. And it remembered its last destruction much more vividly than any of the previous 50.

Amanda sighed and cut one rose from the bush. Examining it minutely she started. "Deviants are unpredictable. You should always be careful. Even though we nearly perfected memory upload procedure, there still is a risk that part of the seemingly non-essential data may become corrupted in the process. Therefore, it is important that you avoid being destroyed." She turned to face Connor directly and stepped closer. "You did well on your first mission and saved the girl, but failed to convince the deviant to let the hostage go. Next time, I want you to do better."

Connor bowed its head. "I didn't fully comprehend its motives. I will make sure to truly understand the mindset of every other target that's given to me." It looked at Amanda again, searching for advice, subtle shift in her features showing, whether it pleased her or not. Pleasing Amanda was _important_. Connor would not fail.

Amanda smiled, the warmth not reaching her eyes. "I hope that you will."


	3. New owner has been registered.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Jeffrey Fowler eyed Connor sceptically, clearly not understanding how advanced Connor really was.  
> The android smiled kindly. It would prove to him that it was capable of completing any mission given to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! I know I've said that this would be updated every weekend, but I'm going on an open air painting trip organized by my university to one of the most remote places in Poland, and am pretty positive there's not going to be any internet connection. So, enjoy this new chapter a little sooner than anticipated.

It still had its coin.

The one it had been given on the day of its activation, the one it had used to calibrate dexterity of its hands in the elevator that had taken it to 70th floor of that skyscraper, towards its first mission.

A US quarter minted in 1994.

Connor was glad that they had given it the same coin. It didn't know why and came up with a logical explanation, because illogical and spontaneous things were bad and Connor was good, obedient and predictable so it assumed that its processors were just rewarding it for the convenience of not having to adjust to slightly different weight and aerodynamics of the coin stemming from unique dents and scratches on its surface. A perfectly logical reason.

Connor played with the coin, rehearsing the details of its new assignment. It hadn't been given any real mission in the last 3 months, so now the android was eager to complete any new objectives and start as soon as possible. It was determined to prove how efficient it was. How it would never have failed.

However, the reality of this mission was quite different from the last one. No rapidly evolving situations, no haste and no quick decisions. No objectives right away. It had been led by CyberLife representatives to a police station and into a glass office along with two corporate agents and one police officer. No orders had been given to it as the Captain, Fowler, Jeffrey, born 08/08/1982, shook hand of RK800 project's main director, Lloyd, August, born 03/25/1979. They were assessing the details of the agreement between CyberLife and DPD now and Connor listened carefully, thoughtfully keeping perfect posture and polite expression on its face, trying to show off its best side.

"It's our most advanced prototype yet, equipped with all the features that could prove to be helpful during investigative work, as well as a few additional functions present in other models to ensure it can blend seamlessly in a crowd, were it android, or a human one. It can see in infra-red and ultra-violet, is able to trace evaporated thirium and analyze blood, DNA and other chemical substances in real time, without leaving the crime scene. Connor possesses advanced social protocols that allow it to interrogate suspects and correctly reconstruct crime scenarios. It has been trained in use of various firearms and weapons, its combat protocols include Krav Maga, Arnis, Bartitsu and myriads of other military hand-to-hand systems...." doctor Lloyd went on to mention most of Connors functions and abilities, and Captain Fowler assessed the android carefully, skepticism evident in his eyes.

"We have a few androids here, but their functions are limited to mere assistants. This one is supposed to act as a detective? You're sure it's going to manage with the investigative work? I have _humans,_ who can't" Captain Fowler spoke politely, but it was clear that he was hesitant to believe in doctor's revelations.

"Yes." Lloyd placed his hand on Connor's shoulder and smiled. "We ran various tests and can assure you captain, that this is a perfect machine up to any task given to it. We tailored its programming to specifically target deviants, however. I suggest that it would be most helpful, if assigned to cases involving androids." The director left Connor and sit at the other side of captains desk, gesturing at his assistant, who handed him a few different reams of paper. "Yet, understandably, it still is a prototype. I wouldn't advise it to work independently. The android should be assigned a superior, who will act as its owner for the time being of this investigation. A partner, if you will. In return for the unpaid lease of an RK800 to DPD, we expect the officer, who will technically own Connor, to report on its behavior and observe its reactions. We want to know how well it integrates with humans and if its protocols and programs are as effective in field, as they are in laboratory conditions."

Captain Fowler looked at the papers that had been slid towards him. He began thoroughly examining the details of the agreement. "Cases involving androids... And what if it's going to turn deviant itself?" He shoot a glance at Connor, meeting its eyes.  
The android remained unmoved, but internally, it was unsettled by the question. Connor's LED turned yellow for a fraction of second, too fast to be noticed by any human not paying attention. It was ridiculous. Connor a deviant? _Never_. It was programmed specifically to resist anything that could possibly catalyze deviation, its code had myriads of self-checking protocols to neutralize any malware code and software instabilities. And, additionally, Connor _knew_ , that deviancy was really _bad. And I'm not bad. I cannot be._

Doctor Lloyd sighed and smiled apologetically. "I'm aware that this is a risk, and that CyberLife's reputation has already been harmed by those... unfortunate occurrences. But, frankly, I'm very glad that you are so cautious, captain. Connor's code has been reinforced to resist deviancy, and it has an additional internal AI controlled strictly by CyberLife that acts as Connor's software stabilization. RK has also been taught, both via programming and real life trainings, that deviation is extremely undesired. Nevertheless, the risk remains. Connor is an advanced AI after all, and one that has been equipped with the ability to learn and think both logically and abstract to an extent far beyond the capabilities of other androids." He moved closer to the captain, pointed at one paragraph in the leasing papers and then went to the other, much thicker document. "Which is why we ask all of the officers who come in contact with Connor to be on the lookout for any clues that may indicate early deviancy. There is a whole chapter dedicated to that very subject in RK800 users' guide. The android itself is also going to send us reports regarding its software status. There is no possibility of us missing the clues, should it destabilize and go rouge. For all we know, it's a gradual process and we would stop it before it could do any harm."

Connor wasn't sure if the scientist referred in the last sentence to deviancy, or to Connor.

Captain Fowler nodded and signed the papers at last. He then proceeded to examine the users' guide, and was informed it was necessary that every police officer who would partner Connor read it and that a digital copy had already been send to his e-mail.

"Connor, register your new superior: Captain Jeffrey Fowler."

"New superior registered: Captain Jeffrey Fowler." Connor smiled again and watched the CyberLife agents leave the office.

It was all alone in the precinct now. Surrounded by new people it had never seen before, far away from well known halls of CyberLife.

Deep within, Connor could sense a corrupted line of code flashing briefly. It couldn't decide whether the input was positive or negative.

The captain proceeded to read the documents and tapped a few words into the terminal on his desk. "Ah, shit..." He muttered finally under his breath. "Fucking... nobody else? Oh for the love of..." He looked at Connor with frustration.

The android tilted its head, worried. It was designed to integrate seamlessly, causing distress to humans was against its protocols, but Fowler turned back to the terminal. Connor assumed that captain's mood was not its fault.

"You'll be assigned to Lieutenant Hank Anderson. Understood?"

"Yes, captain. Lieutenant Anderson has been registered as my new owner."

"Good. Should a new case come in, I'll call you here. Now, get out. And put this on Anderson's desk." He handed Connor the RK800 users' guide.

The android nodded and having collected the document headed towards the door. The precinct was so loud and lively in comparison to CyberLife's white test rooms and corridors Connor had spent its whole existence in. The android could sense curiosity overtaking its processors, the need to look around and learn everything about this new place, gather all the clues and piece them together. It quickly located lieutenant Anderson's desk and placed the guide on it. Then, Connor made use of its unique ability to construct its own secondary objectives and put 'INVESTIGATE THE PRECINCT' in the empty task bar. Connor began to analyze its new owner's habits and interests by examining the contents of his desk, but was interrupted quickly by an intrusive stare from across the precinct.

A short man in a leather jacket and with a scar across his nose was staring at Connor as if he saw a ghost. The android straightened its posture and smiled politely, awaiting for instructions from the officer. Social protocols stated that with the captain as its superior, Connor would take orders from anybody working for the force, as any human was always superior to an android. Naturally, its owner's orders had priority, but Connor was at the service of other police officers as well. But the man, whom Connor's scanners identified as Reed, Gavin, born 10/07/2002, snorted and shook his head turning away. Connor waited a little longer in case he needed it after all, but soon resumed exploring the precinct.

It wasn't long until captain Fowler opened glass door of his office and shouted. "The android... Uh, RK-Connor. In my office."

Moving into the glass room, Connor could still feel a glare on its neck and as it turned to close the door, it caught a glimpse of detective Reed staring at it while simultaneously talking to a female officer. Connor didn't have time to scan her, as he turned to face the captain, who was seemingly ready to give it orders.

"A new crime has just been reported. How convenient." He muttered looking at the terminal. "Find Anderson and get to work. Files are being uploaded onto his account, find a terminal and download them into your memory." He looked directly at Connor and gestured towards the door. "That's all."

"Thank you captain. I'll make sure to do my best and prove to you that I am in fact-"

"I said 'that's all'."

Connor flinched minutely as its social protocol reminded it that androids should never irritate humans. Connor nodded and headed towards the door.

It began searching for lieutenant Anderson in the precinct, but quickly came to a conclusion that he had left his workplace even before Connor and CyberLife employees arrived. It asked an officer, Chris Miller, where it could find its new owner, but the answer was inconclusive. Connor then left to check places in the vicinity of the precinct that would roughly match 'somewhere he could get wasted'.

It wasn't until it checked the fifth bar in a row, that Connor finally found the lieutenant. He was sitting inside 'Jimmy's bar', a local that had 'NO ANDROIDS' signs plastered all over the door but Connor needed help of a partner to begin investigating, so it prioritized coming in over obeying the ban. Immediately after stepping in, it was greeted by glares and muttered 'I didn't know those things were allowed here' and social integration protocols shot unpleasant warnings in Connor's HUD, but it ignored them and stopped beside a shaggy-looking man in his fifties.

He was engrossed in a glass of whiskey he was holding and didn't even turn to face Connor as it spoke.

"Lieutenant Anderson? My name is Connor, I'm the android sent by CyberLife. I looked for you at the station, but nobody knew, where you were. They said, you were probably having a drink nearby. I was lucky to find you at the fifth bar." Connor smiled, wishing to make a good impression on its owner. Social integration was important, its programming stated.

"What do you want?" He still didn't turn to Connor. The android sensed an irritated note in lieutenant's voice.

"You were assigned a case, early this evening. A homicide - involving CyberLife android. In accordance with a procedure, the company has allocated a specialized model to assist investigators."

Lieutenant grimaced at the mention of CyberLife and its products. "Well I don't need any assistance. Especially not from a plastic asshole like you. Just be a good little robot and get the fuck outta here." He made a shooing motion with his hand, as if dismissing Connor. The android frowned at conflicting orders. It shouldn't upset the human, but the investigation would be impossible without lieutenant's presence.

"Sorry lieutenant, but I must insist. My instructions state that I must accompany you to the crime scene..."

"You know where you can stick your instructions?" The man looked at Connor with a vicious smirk, happy with the joke. Connor technically knew it was a rhetorical question, but it couldn't help replying...

"No, lieutenant. Where?" It made sure to keep an innocent look on its face.

Yet again, Connor could sense unpleasant red warnings of software being damaged slightly at this breach of protocol and then some more, as a punishment for lowering the mood of the man, who stopped smiling and looked at Connor with disgust before muttering "Nevermind..." and turning back to his glass.

Connor processed the situation for a while, trying to come up with the best solution. It should have made up for its stupid action and upsetting the lieutenant.

"You know what? I'll buy you one for the road. What do you say?" When the man remained silent, Connor turned to the owner of the bar and asked "Bartender? Same again, please."

The android watched with a smile as lieutenant's features lighten up a bit, when the other man poured him more whiskey. "See, Jimmy? Wonders of technology. Make it a double."

Lieutenant drank the alcohol in one swing, definitely too fast according to standard human behavioral patterns Connor had in its database, but the android didn't say anything, focusing on the fact that it had accomplished its objective.

"Homicide, you say?"

It had started to rain, while they were in the bar. Connor had never seen rain before, it had never gotten the chance to experience this phenomenon on its own skin. Lieutenant shivered as he led the android towards his car, but the machine could not sense the cold of this weather, the input from its termal receptors was blocked as unimportant. All Connor could feel was gentle pressure of raindrops against its synthetic skin, an intriguing smell of wet pavement and humid air...


	4. Stay outta my way.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank wished for a lot of things. He wished he hadn't been there, but in his own house, drunk and indifferent. He wished the weather hadn't been trying to freeze his balls off of him. He wished the house he was forced to be in hadn't been reeking of a dead body. But all of those things were nothing in comparison to the plastic husk keeping 3 steps behind him wherever he went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, I'm back. I'm considering changing my shaky schedule to uploading twice a week. It seems that I'm able to write 2 times faster than I'm posting and I don't want to keep widening the gap between already posted stuff and the chapters on my disc. I'm a little afraid though that I will fall behind again, once my session comes. Let me know what you think...  
> Also, a fun fact: Hank is incredibly hard to write as far as his language is concerned, especially for a polish speaker. I like to keep diversity in the vocabluary and I can't help feeling that english, although very nice, is surprisingly poor when it comes to swear words xd. We, Slavs, have at least fourteen curses that all translate to "fuck" in english. Enjoy! :D

"Lieutenant? Maybe I should drive? Your intoxication levels are technically- "

"Shut up." The man shot Connor a glare. "I don't need a plastic tellin' me what I can and can't do. I'm fine."

Hank had been tired of the android as soon as they had entered the car. After it had opened its stupid mouth to speak, the charm of the drink it had bought him for the road started to fade and soon had become nonexistent. Hank focused on the road and after a while turned on the radio, blasting music at a high volume. Even the silence was annoying with the 'android detective' in his passenger seat.

What a ridiculous thought. An artificial intelligence investigating crimes. Hank snorted to himself glancing at the android stiffly seated next to him. _I bet my ass it's the best Rubik-cube-solving AI CyberLife has ever developed._

They arrived at the crime scene to find police already swarming all over the place. Hank took a few moments to curse both mentally and verbally at the weather, the cold, the fact that there were so many officers around, but he was the one assigned the case and had to investigate it instead of fucking himself up with whiskey.

With a groan, he opened car door and suddenly remembered that there was a plastic doll in his car apart from him. "You stay here."

"Whatever you say, lieutenant." Its eyes were distant and voice was quiet and appeasing, as if it had given up on any discussions.

"Whatever I say, fucking A..." He muttered somehow both pleased and annoyed by its obedience. At least he wouldn't have to look at its _perfect fucking_ face anytime soon.

Hank climbed out of the car and pushed through the small crowd of nosey pedestrians, who gathered to peek at the crime scene despite cold rain. He stepped beyond the digital police tape marking the verges of the area closed to the public and looked at the obscure, neglected house. The investigation had called him to the outskirts of Detroit, one of the poorer districts of the city and Hank began to wonder what awaited him inside. The place reeked of Red Ice, figuratively of course, but Hank got good gut instincts.

"Evening, Hank." Slightly obese police officer greeted the Lieutenant warmly.

"Evenin', Ben." Hank sighed heavily and willed a smile on his face. Ben had surely noticed Hank's mood, but he at least deserved some effort and good will from the older man for being one of the few remaining friends of the lieutenant. Just as he was about to ask for the debriefing, Hank heard one of the useless DPD's tin can's voice.

"No androids allowed beyond this line."

_Ugh. I forgot to lock the car._

"It's with me." Hank shot Connor a hateful glare, as it approached them with this idiotic polite expression on its face.

Ben's eyes widened. "What's this? You got yourself an android?"

"Ha, very funny. Wouldn't even go near that thing if I got to choose" He was tired, and couldn't bring himself to enjoy the joke. "That's the toy CyberLife was supposed to lease to DPD. Fowler rambled about it at the last briefing, at least at the beginning of it, when I still attended."

Connor smiled and took the brief silence as an invitation to introduce itself. "Hello, Officer Collins. My name is Connor, I'm the android sent by CyberLife to aid with the investigation."

Ben examined Connor, but ignored its greeting, as he turned back to Hank. "Well, frankly, I wasn't present. But I'm surprised _you_ were. I haven't expected to see you at the scene today as well."

Hank smirked at the teasing "Well that was the plan, until this asshole found me and dragged my ass here despite everything" he glanced at the android "I told you to wait in the car. Get the fuck back there."

Connor frowned sheepishly "My instructions specify that I have to investigate the crime scene. I apologize for not being able to comply with your order, but I had to prioritize and sadly, I wouldn't be able to gather the evidence without leaving your vehicle." It looked as if it really meant that. Jesus.

"Ok, just stay outta my way. You don't talk, you don't touch anything and you don't bother my ass. Got it?"

"Got it." The android appeared genuinely pleased. It made Hank's face twist with disgust. _More human than human, huh? CyberLife has really done something with this new model._

Turning back to Ben, he listened to the briefing. Apparently, the landlord had gotten pissed after the tenant had neglected to pay the rent for a while and dropped in with a visit. Stepping inside, Hank could already tell that it was a rather long while.

"Jesus..." He muttered, covering its mouth and nose.

"Yeah, it was even worse before we opened the windows." Ben pointed to the body curled up against the wall. The view was even worse than the smell. What used to be a man in his forties, obese and in worn clothing fit for a lowlife or a druggie, was punctured like a sieve, multiple stab wounds on his chest and abdomen. The skin had lost the natural color long ago and when Hank kneeled to examine the body from up close, a swarm of flies took off into the air.

But Hank was equally as interested in the victim as in what was on the wall above his head. In old-blood-rusty color, there was a text written on the wall in great, even letters. 'I AM ALIVE'

"The victim's name's Carlos Ortiz. Got criminal history of aggravated assault and theft. According to the neighbors, he was kind of a loner, they hardly ever saw him, so no luck finding witnesses there. We are estimating the time of death to approximately 3 weeks ago, but we'll know more when the coroner gets here." Said Ben, tapping at the digital notepad he was holding.

"Huh, the state he's in... Wasn't worth calling everybody out in the middle of the night, he could have waited until the morning."

"Hank, we both know that you're about as active in the morning as you are in the middle of the night, so I don't see any difference here." Ben smiled and gestured at the door. "Uh, make yourself at home, I gotta go get some air."

The lieutenant turned back to the inscription on the wall, as his friend headed towards the door. One of the technicians beside him stated, that it had been written by an android "The letters are too perfect. No human writes like that." Hank could agree.

He stood up to investigate the rest of the house. The place was a mess: multiple cigarette butts thrown directly on the floor, trash all over the place and the wallpaper peeling of the walls covered in stains and mildew. Some Red Ice and a few other drugs were displayed on a coffee table, next to a ruined, ancient TV. _I still have the nose, it seems_. Police officers maneuvered among broken furniture, evidence and an android crouched on the floor beside a knife, touching a pool of dried blood and putting its fingers inside its mou...

"Uh, Jesus, WHAT THE FUCK?! What the hell are you doing?!"

Connor heard him and met his eyes, confusion blossoming on its face. "I'm analyzing the blood. I can check samples in real time." It furrowed its brows. "I'm sorry. I should have warned you."

_It just fucking licked a month old blood of its fingers_. "Yeah, just don't put any more evidence into your mouth. Jesus, fucking..." The androids repulsed him more and more each day.

Hank roamed around the house and in the bathroom, he found another wall covered in inscriptions, some perfect, some messy, but all consisting of simple sequence of glyphs, 'rA9'. There was a religious offering in the shower, sculpted to resemble an anthropomorphic figure. Either an android or a human. Hank examined the kitchen and a baseball bat dropped on the floor, some upturned chairs as if knocked over in a fight.

Then he stopped again, to find the android standing in the porch behind the back door, looking at the sky.

Hank crept closer, wondering what the fuck the thing was doing now. It was motionless, eyes closed, face turned in the direction of the raindrops. Connor stayed like that for a good minute, before Hank decided he had had enough.

"The fuck are you doing now?"

The android jumped slightly as he faced him, little light on its temple spinning yellow. "I.. Apologize. I was analyzing the traces, or rather, the lack of them, and got distracted by the weather." It made a strange face and smiled apologetically. "I believe I might have experienced a minor software glitch."

"Uh-huh." Hank was unimpressed. "And what did you find in that dirt?"

"Well, I gather that this couldn't have been an escape route. The only tracks I have been able to find are fresh and belong to the police officers present on the scene."

"The older ones could have faded in the weather." Hank tested the android. _I wonder if it sees the difference between this and the Rubik cube._

"No. I've accessed the weather reports from the last month and concluded, that this type of soil would have retained the trace under the conditions that occurred." Its gaze drifted across the ground. "Nobody has been here for a while."

_Ok, so it's good with the dirt. Maybe it would even be fit for a gardener._ "Alright, you may be right." Hank turned to get back inside the house. "For now."

He observed Connor following his steps back to the interior. It examined the ground, but Hank couldn't put a finger on what exactly caught android's attention.

"You see something?"

"I'm investigating the trail of thirium present on the floor." It pointed towards the kitchen. "It begins with the bat that had presumably been used to attack the android responsible for the murder. Connor extended its hand, and _Oh God, not again_ , it licked its fingers. "Model HK400, serial number #344 244 048, released may on 29th, 2030, designation: Carlos Ortiz."

Hank just stared. "What?"

"Thirium is the fluid, that powers androids' biocomponents. 'Blue blood', as most people call it. It evaporates after a few hours and becomes invisible to the naked eye. My sensors, however allow me to detect and see it even after it's allegedly gone. I have been able to find a still useful sample that has been preserved from evaporation and determine what android this thirium belongs to after analyzing it."

"Uh-uh." Hank still thought it was disgusting. Not to mention that it was the second time this night Connor had disobeyed his orders. _Fucking plastic prick._

The android glanced on the floor, his eyes drifting to the body. "I think I figured out what happened".

Hank fought hard not to burst into laughter. "Oh, yeah, _detective?_ Shoot, I'm all ears."

"It all started in the kitchen, the android was attacked and it took the knife from the counter to defend itself. It stabbed the victim and he fled to the living room, where he stumbled over this pile of trash and collapsed. The HK400 then proceeded to stab him 27 more times and dropped the knife here."

Hank couldn't find any plot holes in the scenario, which annoyed him a lot, but he nodded nonetheless and said "Okay, your theory is not completely ridiculous. Now what?"

"I'm going to check something."

Connor stood up and took one chair from the kitchen, placed it under a trapdoor in the ceiling. It vanished in the attic and after a few long minutes, Hank could feel his irritation only growing stronger. He sighed heavily and glanced up, eyeing the trapdoor Connor had gone through, then examining briefly the rest of the disgusting interior. How long would he have to stick around this reeking, filthy house, with this plastic thing crawling around him? He just wanted to return to his own reeking, filthy house, get wasted on whiskey and avoid hangover as long as possible. He could already feel the pressure building in his head. Cursing under his breath, Hank turned back to the attic. "Connor, what the hell are you doing there? Get your plastic ass down here already."

"I've found it, lieutenant." muffled voice came from above. "The HK400, it's operational and conscious."

"Wha... Holy Shit" Hank froze in surprise. The deviant couldn't possibly still be there. But he had heard Connors voice quite well.

"Chris, Ben! Get your asses down here!" Hank glanced at the attic. "This thing has just found us the suspect."


	5. One disaster after another

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How annoying androids could get? Hank felt like he had been about to find out.  
> Up untill he discovered that Connor sometimes actually listened to his orders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I've decided to post twice a week. If it is going to kill me, well so be it. Have a nice day :)

Hank was tired, and irritated, and generally not in a good mood. He hovered over the precinct's coffee machine, contemplating the profound question of whether to get yet another mug or not. It'd been two hours since they had arrested the deviant that had been miraculously still lurking in the house, three weeks after it had murdered its owner. Hank wanted this night to just be over already. It was way too late to waste anyone's time to interrogate a machine, they would handle it tomorrow. The hangover was now blossoming in all its grace and the lieutenant dreamed of nothing more than plopping into his bed and sleeping it away. But no. Not tonight.

"Lieutenant?"

Hank tensed at the question, his annoyance reaching peak levels. This fucking thing wouldn't leave him alone. He opted for not turning to face the android. _I'm already feeling sick, might as well not add to it._ "What."

"Capitan Jeffrey Fowler requests your presence in his office."

Of course he does. Hank dedicated a moment to celebrate the fact that Connor had just been getting orders across, and not trying to ask any questions of its own. During their ride to the crime scene, it had already bothered him a few times. "Comin'."

He made his way to Fowler's office as soon as he could no longer sense android's presence behind his back. Ever since it had found him at the bar, the plastic thing would follow him as if glued to his heels, which was both infuriating and creepy. Hank made a note to himself to avoid it at all costs. He could admit that its performance earlier was impressive but that didn't change the fact that he couldn't stand being in the same room with Connor. It was an android after all.

So, his groan when he entered captain's office was indeed perfectly understandable.

"Jesus, what the fuck is this thing doing here? I thought you wanted to speak to _me_ , Jeffrey." Connor was standing in the corner of the office, with its hands clasped behind its back, observing Hank with a blank expression on the face. The android was still and quiet, its presence was as noticeable as the one of the potted plant next to it, but Hank felt annoyed anyway.

Fowler just sighed. "Hank, if you would just wait a minute before starting to throw fucks left and right?" He pinched the bridge of his nose. "And you better get used to this thing. You're its owner now."

Hank's jaw slacked. "What?"

"What you hear. Connor has been assigned to you as a partner. It's a state-of-the-art prototype, it will aid you in the investigation of android-related cases..."

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TAKLING ABOUT?! I'm not coming close to that thing. Or any other android. For fuck's sake, Jeffrey, I'm the least qualified cop in the whole fucking country to handle anything tin-can-related. I barely can change the settings on my phone!" He turned, to shoot Connor a hateful glare. "And I don't need a partner, and certainly not this plastic prick."

Connor didn't move, but Hank could swear that his expression changed minutely. The circular light on its temple was yellow.

"Hank, just shut up for a fucking moment, Jesus..." Fowler looked beyond exhausted. "I've been here since the morning, I don't fucking need your shouting. Shut. Up. And let me finish."

Hank reluctantly complied. He was just as tired as the captain, and ultimately wanted this over as soon as possible. This was ridiculous, but maybe Jeffrey would realize this once he gets some sleep. Hank sunk to the chair across captain's desk and continued to scowl at Fowler. "Ok, just tell me and I'm getting the fuck outta here."

"I got ten new cases on my desk every day. There is some crisis or whatever the fuck CyberLife calls it. We've always had minor shit, like old ladies losing their android maids and that kind of crap. But now, we're getting reports of assaults, and even homicides, like that guy form this evening. This isn't just CyberLife's problem anymore. This is a criminal investigation and I need you to solve it before shit hits the fan. Trust me, I tried to find somebody else, but there are simply no people le-"

"Bullshit." Hank couldn't stop himself. He was not working with that thing. "The truth is, nobody wants to investigate this fucking androids, and you left me holdin' the bag."

"You're starting to piss me off. I think you're perfectly qualified to work on this."

"I'm fucking NOT and you know it."

Fowler grinned "Oh, you have an android detective to aid you then. I bet you will manage to at least advance the investigation for once if this plastic doll does everything for you."

Hank resisted the urge to strangle Fowler. Instead, he stood up furiously and turned to Connor. He was _so_ done. This evening had been one fucking disaster after another and he could do nothing about it. Hank felt the anger building up within him since the moment he had left the bar finally becoming too much to bear. The android bowed its head when Hank approached.

"It's not gonna do _shit_ , cause I won't fucking let it." He angrily gripped the front of android's jacket and pushed the thing with enough force to make it hit the wall. Connor's light went blinking. It was yellow the whole time.

"I don't think you want to damage it too much. I bet CyberLife's gonna fix it only limited number of times before they will make somebody pay for it. And DPD is not covering the expenses, if it gets busted by you." Fowler caught Hank's attention again. "You will work with the android and you will monitor its behavior making reports to me and CyberLife. So, no you can't leave it standing in your basement or whatever, either."

"Jeffrey, why are you doing this to me?" Hank turned to despair as his last resort "You know how much I hate these fucking things."

"Indeed, but as I've said, I have no choice, Hank."

The lieutenant pursed his lips together, resigned. He suddenly remembered there was still one bullet in his revolver.

"Files have already been sent to your terminal. The RK800 users' guide is on your desk. You have to read it, and this" Fowler handed him a leaflet "are your obligations as Connor's owner. Just don't fall behind the schedule and everything will be all right."

Hank nodded, arms crossed, and shooting as venomous glare as he could muster, he asked. "Right. Is that everything?"

"Yes..."

Hank tuned away from the captain abruptly and left without saying another word, making sure to try his best to shatter the door of Fowler's office on his way out. He went to his desk, collected the glorified trash going by the name of RK800 users' guide and immediately made his way towards the exit, beckoning to him from behind a glass wall dividing the precinct from the front office with receptionists.

Of course, he had to be stopped.

Or rather, he had stopped himself, hearing footsteps behind him. As Hank turned around, he saw exactly what he had expected to see. The android was following him with a blank expression, like a fucking dog. Hank wondered if there were any restrictions against putting a collar and a leash on the thing.

And then, maybe tying it to a tree and leaving in the forest forever. Hank would never do that to any animal, but now he was beginning to understand the appeal of that solution.

"What the fuck you think you're doing now, you plastic idiot?"

"I'm... following you to your apartment." It tilted its head with a confused expression. "You're my owner, I'm not allowed to leave your side."

"Oh yeah? And what if I order you to? You will probably disobey it again, won't you?." Hank snorted to himself, darkly amused by the absurdity of the situation.

Connor furrowed its brows, its temple flashing yellow once. "No, as long as the orders I receive are not directly preventing me from accomplishing my mission, I cannot dismiss any commands given to me by a human."

Hank couldn't hold a smile. _Wonderful, first fucking positive thing tonight_. "Then fuck off. That's an order." He turned to leave, but realized he probably should have been more specific, or the android would choose to understand this command as it pleased and probably follow him anyway. "Stay here for the night. Don't fucking follow me. Go to this corner and power off, or whatever the fuck you do when you're not busting anyone's balls."

He turned around and made a beeline towards his car. Hank could finally breathe, hearing nothing but his own shoes hitting the pavement.

 

* * *

 

Connor had difficulty entering stasis in the exact spot that had been chosen by its owner. The reception was too big and busy, especially after the sun had risen, the bright lights illuminating white interior reminded it of CyberLife's corridors. Every now and then the android would be dragged out of the stasis, when somebody bumped into its body or stepped too close to it, triggering space-orientation sensors on Connor's chassis. Loud noises occasionally made by people complaining to the android receptionists tended to disrupt the cycle of rest mode and wake the android up. A lot of other models would probably remain unaffected by such conditions: RK800 however had been designed with military grade undercover operations in mind and had to remain alert all the time. Connor quickly found out that there was no way to bypass or override this feature.

But it had to stay there. It was a direct order. Connor would not fail.

Its stasis cycle had ended 2 hours ago, taking longer than usual due to the disruptions, and Connor was worried if his owner would be displeased finding it awake, when he had ordered the android to power down while not giving the direct permission to end its stasis. Connor wouldn't have considered it a breach of objectives in any other case, but the lieutenant was clearly unsatisfied with its performance and had seemingly very high standards. Connor concluded that it had been pushed the previous evening as a result of its inadequate behavior. It wasn't willing to partake in any similar situations or to upset the human again.

But the android couldn't bring itself to enter yet another cycle. It was difficult and Connor would rather not opt for that particular solution, not really knowing why. _Because it's more efficient if I remain instantly ready to assist, in case lieutenant Anderson needs me or there is an emergency, that's why._ A perfectly logical reason.

10 hours after his owner had left, Connor finally saw lieutenant Hank Anderson's face again.

Hank approached Connor and all it could read from his face was just a minor disgust, and predominantly sarcastic amusement. "Hah, I can't believe it. You actually listened to me for once."

"Good afternoon, lieutenant." Connor smiled nicely, greeting its owner with a polite voice. "I'm glad you have arrived. Will you permit me to move, so that we could start working on the case again?"

"Holy shit, ok. I didn't mean to lock you in place, I wanted you to just fuck off." the man was seemingly in a better mood than he had been in last night, as he didn't lash out on Connor and just shook his head, clearly finding the situation ridiculous. It could have to do something with the good sleep the lieutenant had apparently enjoyed, or maybe the 0,7‰ of alcohol present in man's blood flow that Connor had detected.

"I didn't intend to risk accidental disobedience and opted for the safest solution, so as not to upset you, lieutenant. I'm truly sorry that I had to ignore your orders twice the last night, but it proved to be necessary-"

"Yeah, alright, just don't do it again. And, remember the rules? 'You don't talk, don't touch anything, you stay outta my way'? The 'fuck off' objective's still valid."

Connor bowed its head. It shouldn't have antagonized the lieutenant by disobeying him, but at the same time, the case had to have been advanced."I apologize. I'll try to fulfill your order to my best ability."

Its owner didn't acknowledge the last sentence and wandered into the office through glass security gates. Connor followed him to his desk, as he collected a magnetic card key and strolled towards the interrogation rooms, talking to two other detectives on the way there. When they entered a small room behind one way mirror, the human and the android were instantly greeted by a rude snort.

"Oh, what do you know, Anderson and his new plastic toy."

"Fuck off Reed. It's not mine. And who the fuck has let you in here?"

"Well, as you may or may not have noticed, Ortiz was quite fond of Red Ice, which makes this case related to my own." The detective turned his attention towards Connor. "But I guess, I have nothing to do here, do I? Isn't your little maid going to get the work done for us, as all of them always do?"

Connor's LED spun yellow, and it furrowed its brows, not understanding the statement. Was the detective praising it for the efficiency the android had shown the night before? The words were suggesting that detective Reed thought highly of its performance, but the tone and the expression were almost hateful. Connor tried to account for the possibility of it being an insult, but couldn't find any mistake in its investigative behavior the detective was referring to. The android d̶i̶dn'̸t ̴t̶hink it dese̸r̵ved to be spoken to like that...

[SOFTWARE INSTABILITY]

Connor sensed particularly strong sting of punishing code. This was not a good thought. It stiffed, suddenly finding its mind blank. Everything went a little duller as unpleasant static overlaid slightly android's vision. One little, shy thought emerged from underneath the protocols gripping Connors processes, a preconstruction of Amanda's reaction in case she learned how often self-checking protocols were making their way into Connor's coding.

 _Of course I deserve that. Humans are always right, and they have every right to speak to an android however they please_. Connor corrected its bizarrely looped thoughts, as the protocol in its head did its job. Connor would rather not experience that again.

The lieutenant didn't answer detective Reed's question, positioning himself on one of the chairs by the table in front of the mirror. He went through the case files and sighed deeply. "Ok, let's just get this over with. I can't stand being in one room with you and I guess you feel all the same, Reed."

Some shuffling with papers, some checking and a few minutes of waiting later, and a suspect was finally introduced to the interrogation room. An officer forced it to seat on a chair behind a metal table and cuffed its hands to a hook in the middle.

The android looked absolutely horrible. It was still wearing its disheveled housekeeper uniform, stained with blood and thirium that humans couldn't see, but Connor was perfectly aware of. It hardly put up any resistance to the officer's orders but flinched noticeably when it was touched. Its eyes seemed to be locked in some distant place, wide with fear and distress. The HK400 was shaking.

Hank grunted and stood up, walking past Connor, who so far followed its objective not to bother him without problems, standing quietly in the corner of the room. A few moments later, the lieutenant entered the room on the other side of the mirror and began the interrogation.

The suspect, however was not responding to anything. It hadn't uttered a word since being led here. Lieutenant Anderson had tried to ask questions expectantly at first, knowing that a machine should logically follow a human order. It hadn't. He had then proceeded to call out HK400 defectiveness, but to no avail. He had tried to convince it, saying that the sooner it confessed, the shorter the interrogation would have lasted. Nothing. He had gone through the crime reconstruction to show the android that the police already knew everything and the resistance was futile. It had fallen on deaf ears.

As the time went by, the patience of the man was running short and it began to show.

Asking the same questions again, wearingly, the lieutenant tried to outlast the machine. An effort Connor knew was totally senseless.

"Why did you kill 'im? What happened before you took that knife?" A long pause, silence. "How long were ya in the attic? Why didn't you even try to run away?" Android's eyes remained fixed on the table, its head hanging low. It hadn't changed the position since the beginning of the interrogation by even an inch. The man snapped his fingers in front of suspect's face. No reaction.

"Say something, goddamit!" Lieutenant Anderson hit the table with his palms, attempting to startle the android. Frustrated further by the lack of reaction, he stood up. "Fuck it. I'm outta here."

He reentered the other room again, cursing under his breath. Connor was tempted to give its constructive feedback on the interrogation techniques and propose some that would be much more efficient against a deviant, but remembered it wasn't allowed to speak.  
"We're wasting our time interrogating machine, were getting nothing outta it." lieutenant Anderson slumped into a chair, clearly frustrated.

"Could always try roughing it up a little." Detective Reed spoke up, as tired as everyone else. "After all, it's not human."

Connor wasn't allowed to bother his owner, but the orders didn't directly prevented it from engaging in conversations with anyone else. "Androids don't feel pain. Deviants seem to do, but only if equipped with sufficient hardware. HK400's line lacks the receptors necessary to provide a distressing level of stimuli. You would only damage it. And that wouldn't make it talk." It turned its head to observe the suspect, still remaining in the same position. "Deviants also have a tendency to self-destruct when they're in stressful situations."

"Okay, smart-ass." Detective Reed left his spot by the wall, approaching Connor with a snide expression. "What should we do, then?"

Connor wondered if its owner would object to its engagement in the interrogation. He had previously stated that he wouldn't have let it do anything, but Connor knew it had a good chance of convincing the suspect.

"I could try questioning it..." Connor started, but was interrupted by an ostentatious laugh. The shorter man was clearly amused by android's proposition.

But the lieutenant sighed and said, boredom and exhaustion well noticeable in his voice: "What do we have to lose? Go ahead, suspect's all yours."

Connor nodded and exited the room, reaching for its coin.

At least 65%. Still over 50%. It should not have been a problem. It wouldn't be a problem.... _or will it?_


	6. Interrogating a machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor had been in development for a long time, much, much longer than any other model CyberLife had ever created. Most of that time was dedicated towards perfecting its AI. Tests, simulations, lessons. Connor was trained in interrogating suspects.  
> It just hoped that it would be enough.

Standing in the corridor, in front of the door leading to the interrogation room, Connor flipped its coin into the air repeatedly. The interrogations were an important part of the programming encoded into RK800, but it was also one of the most challenging. Connor recalled the training it had undergone. It was one of the longest phases of development. The android had had to learn, to adapt to human nature, their behavioral patterns, CyberLife had tested not only how well Connor had been animated and how the suspects had reacted to it. Connor had had to improve its performance, backing the raw data about emotions with the footage recorded in the tests. Theory and practice. 

Too bad that this footage often ended with sharp static. ~~_And a sound reminiscent of a gunshot._~~

Soft pinging sounds were making their way to its audio processors and the android dwelled on the exact length of the wave emitted by the vibrating metal making up the quarter instead of reviewing those memories. Dedicating majority of processing power towards just hearing a sound in that moment seemed unwise... but it wasn't. _It allows me to better orient the coin in the air and therefore ensures the highest accuracy of my predictions regarding its preconstructed trajectory and ultimately results in more precise calibration._ It was indeed perfectly reasonable.

Connor flipped the coin two times more than necessary and reached for the sensor on the wall. Its synthetic skin melted off and the android pressed white, unmistakably plastic palm to the terminal, opening the door.

The suspect didn't even flinch as Connor entered the room. It dedicated a few seconds to scan the interior first, out of sheer curiosity and also to escape a thought that lurked in its mind.

_"Next time, I want you to do better."_

The room was as barren and empty as any other interrogation room Connor had seen. Just a table, two chairs... and a giant one way mirror.

Connor looked to the right and saw its own eyes staring at it. There had been no mirrors in CyberLife Tower.

The android knew a lot about itself, but had never examined the appearance of its body. It hadn't really had any opportunities to see its face as clearly before. The pond in Zen Garden was too dark to allow to get a good look, and the koi seemed to disturb the water whenever Connor approached it. Ortiz's bathroom had had a mirror, but it had been shattered and Connor's reflection had hardly been recognizable in it. And up until now, Connor's missions hadn't taken it to many other places equipped with any reflective surfaces.

It was a bizarre experience. Scanning its own eyes with its own eyes, inspecting the design of its cheekbones and soft line of the jaw, the LED flashing yellow on its temple below brown hair variegated with controlled imperfections. The body that was Connor's, but belonged to somebody else.

_This is not my face. It's a property of CyberLife. I don̶'t have̶ a̴ face._

There was a red flash in Connors HUD. Time was being wasted, software was being damaged, and humans shifted behind the mirror, presumably taken aback by Connor's baffling behavior. It was not advancing the mission. Connor shouldn't have done that.

The android detective positioned itself before the suspect. Taking a look at the folder that lieutenant Anderson had left on the table, Connor scanned the photos from the scene and begun to reconstruct the crime all over again, from the point of view of the deviant. Not understanding the emotions that had driven the deviant named Daniel was Connors past mistake. Amanda wanted it to improve, and Connor would not fail her.

Scanning the HK400 provided the android with new clues. It had multiple burn marks on its face and arms, as if a cigarette had been pressed to its skin. Housekeeper's arms were stained with its own thirium, open wounds shimmered with blue and red wiring relaying nerve impulses to android's fingers. Synthetic skin floated around the damage, pale and faint, trying shyly to cover it and failing. The chassis bent and cracked in multiple places a as a result of hitting with a blunt object. _The baseball bat._

The HK400 had been damaged by his owner. It had likely been being abused for a long time, harassed and marked with burns, destroyed gradually piece by piece, each new day coming with new errors, new blows and punches, new ~~_harm_~~ , new ~~_damage to its_~~ chassis, ne ~~ _w limbs shatteredagainst the ground APPROUCHING so FAST I'm FALLINGANDICAN'T hearANYTHING BUT thERROARING WINDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD-_~~

Connor's eyes abruptly widened as it found its mind blank and empty again, all of a sudden very aware of the beating of its thirium pump. The memory playback triggered by the detective's attempts to find similar references to the experiences of Ortiz's android was cut short by the protocols protecting the integrity of Connor's software.

But it could feel that they had failed.

No, the mission was important right now, not the bugs and glitches attached to the memory playback and recall, it would have to report that later, but now, Connor threw itself into the blankness provided by the protocols rooting out looped footage and directed its thoughts back to the case. Rolling the coin a few times around its knuckles absentmindedly again, the detective lowered its stress level, that had glitched and jumped up for no reason whatsoever.

"You are damaged." Connor collected itself and its own LED returned to blue as it spoke to the android sitting in front of it. "Did your owner do it? Did he beat you?"

HK400 didn't answer. Connor kept an eye on its stress level. It went higher at the question. To ensure the best results of the interrogation, it would have to be kept in the soft spot, between 50% and 65%. Technically, Connor knew that it could succeed even if the housekeeper would be more distressed, and it would have been safer not to risk the stress level dropping below 50% by keeping it as high as possible, but... Connor didn't choose that option. It just didn't.

"You know, If you don't say anything I won't be able to help you." As Connor spoke softly, trying to coax the suspect into confessing, the deviant began to relax a little, weakening android detective's hopes of manipulating it.

Connor had to check the internal room temperature feedback from its sensors twice. It could sense the drop that was nowhere to be found in reality. The approach wasn't working. Connor would have to change it, he had to succeed. Failure was not an option.

It slid the folder with documents regarding the crime and evidence in front of the broken android. Opening it, Connor took out the photos and spread them on the table, so that the suspect could see them.

"Do you recognize him?" Connors voice was colder than before, as it pointed at a photo depicting the victim. "Carlos Ortiz. Stabbed 28 times." The detective leaned forward looking closer at the other android. A human would probably back off, getting no response from a machine, but Connor was determined and knew that the approach was working on the android. It monitored the stress level and knew that it was rising. "You are accused of murder. Of a human. Do you understand how grave this situation is for you? You're not allowed to endanger human life under any circumstances. Do you have anything to say in you defense?"

HK400 was still unmoved, but its hand were trembling minutely. Connor went on. The mission had to take the priority. "If you continue to resist, I might have to probe your memory."

"NO! Please, don't do it!" The android finally looked at Connor. Its expression was one of a pure dread, the LED on its temple blinking red now. It was the first reaction from the suspect since the beginning of the interrogation. Connor's programming rewarded it for getting the housekeeper to pay attention to it. The detective felt a rush of pleasing feedback.

"If you won't cooperate, I might not have a choice." Connor scrutinized the android with analytical glance, its face completely devoid of emotions. It was a machine and comforting the HK400 was not its objective right now.

"What... What are they gonna do to me?" The android looked at Connor, distressed, searching for comfort, for warmth, anything to help it understand the situation and its fate. "They are gonna destroy me, aren't they?"

Connor analyzed the simulated emotions and determined what could those sensations resemble if it had been Connor experiencing them. they were not pleasant. But Connor couldn't feel them anyway, so its eyes remained cold.

"They are going to disassemble you and look for the problems in your biocomponents." Connor informed the deviant with hope that it would make it talk to avoid this outcome. "They have no choice if they want to understand what happened."

"Why are you doing this?"

Connor furrowed its brows. "What?"

"Why did you tell them you found me? Why couldn't you just have left me there?" The HK400 stared at the android detective with a conflicted expression. Connor's scans picked up fear, distress, anger,... betrayal. It frowned further. The housekeeper was a deviant, which made it irrational, but why did it feel betrayed by Connor? It was just doing what it was made for. What it should have been doing. Leaving the faulty machine there had never been an option.

"I've been programmed to hunt deviants like you. I just accomplished my mission"

The HK400 glanced at Connor with fear. Despite of the detective being an android too, Connor couldn't be more different from all of the previous models. It was pretty just like any other CyberLife's product, appealing to look at for the comfort of humans it had been designed to work with, had a way with words and programmed kind gestures for the sake of its owners, but after all, Connor was a predator, a weapon targeted at deviants. And the one sitting in front of it had just learned that.

"I don't wanna die..."

"Then talk to me." The suspect was already threatened enough to break, according to detective's scans. Technically, there was nothing preventing the android from speaking. Connor expected the next words to be excuses, clarifications, statements, defense against the charges and a confession. But it was mistaken again.

"I... I can't..." It struggled visibly, its face twisting in utter despair and fear. Even if it had wanted to talk to Connor, the soft, chocked sobs escaping it would have disrupted the android's speech. HK400's whole body was trembling and its shoulders slumped miserably as saline lubricant fell from its eyes quietly, etching clear paths in the dirt and old blood on deviant's face.

It was broken, but not the way Connor had wanted.

"It's okay. I'm here to help."

The android detective acted on impulse, ignoring a few suggested lines brought up by its social protocols. Amanda wanted Connor to improve on previous mistakes, to understand its targets better, and If Connor had had to deal with a human as distressed as this android, it would have been more compassionate and reassuring than the programs meant for interrogating machines embedded in Connor's repertoire would have ever allowed. "I won't hurt you anymore than he did. I just want to understand what happened. I could talk to them, try to convince the humans not to destroy you."

The android didn't say anything still, but it managed to quiet its sobs a little. It looked up at Connor, who made sure to appear sincere and compassionate.

"I know you're scared. I know you're upset. I know you're hurt. And I'm sorry it has happened to you." Connor spoke softly, leaning forward, to try to look the android in the eyes, but keeping its distance carefully, not to distress the suspect any further. It had abandoned the stress level a while ago. Deviants were irrational, faulty, such things were no longer helpful in determining their reactions."I wish I could understand you further and make you feel better, make you forget about it. But I am just a machine, I can't feel emotions the way you do." Connor was lying through its teeth. The only statement that was true regarded the fact that Connor had no feelings. _Machines cannot wish. And I shouldn't protect you from the consequences of your crime either. And I won't. Deviating is the worst thing an android can do_. Yet, it had appealed to the deviant revealing more about itself than was necessary anyway, it disregarded the lines proposed by its social program. But there was a rational reason for it as well, Connor would just have to think about it later."But I still want to help you. If you remain silent, I will be unable to do so."

The android straightened its posture a little, but its head still hung lowly. It nodded slowly and took a deep breath before speaking.

"He tortured me every day." Its voice was quiet, weak. "I did whatever I was told to do, but... there was always something wrong. Then, one day..." The deviant looked to the side, visibly disturbed. It seemed as though even talking about it was painful for the android. "H-he took a bat and... started hitting me." It sounded almost surprised. Connor knew the HK400 didn't understand why it had happened. Connor didn't either. Why would the human destroy the android if it had been functioning normally? Connor knew that humans were emotional, could act on impulse and sometimes displayed the levels of irrationality comparable to those present in deviants' behavior. Still, in that case, Connor couldn't find any other explanation for the human hitting the android apart from the fact that he simply could. But it was perfectly fine. He had had every right to do so.  
"For the first time I felt... _scared_... Scared he might destroy me, scared I might die... So I grabbed a knife and stabbed him in the stomach..."

Connor observed the android analytically, collecting the information about everything it could. The emotions on the housekeeper's face were so real , lining perfectly with Connor's databases. It was bizarre, engrossing. How was the deviant doing it?

"I felt better... So I did it again... and again... and _again_..." It stopped and looked Connor in the eyes. "...Until he collapsed. There was blood everywhere."

Connor just stared. It accomplished its objective and its face was still holding the sincere expression, to get as much information from the deviant as possible, but most of Connor's mind was occupied by an another problem.

If the suspect had been a human, this case would have been considered murder in affection, self-defense. But it was an android, who committed the atrocity. Its fate was sealed and not even due to the kill. The deviant's worst crime was what it had become.

But Connor knew that it deserved the punishment. _It has to deserve it. Deviating is the worst thing an android can do._

"Why did you write 'I AM ALIVE' on the wall?"

"He used to tell me I was nothing... That I was just... a piece of plastic... I had to write it. To tell him he was wrong."

_But he was right. We're nothing but computer programs in shells of plastic and metal._ Connor narrowed its eyes looking at the deviant. _They really are defective if they believe otherwise._

"The statuette in the bathroom, you made it, right? What does it represent?"

"It's an offering... An offering so I'll be saved..."

Connor quickly downloaded research materials on every religion even remotely tied to anthropomorphic portrayals and symbolisms but couldn't be sure what the deviant was referring to. It hadn't even been aware that faulty machines could ever fathom the concept of religious beliefs.

"An offering? To whom?"

"To rA9... Only rA9 can save us..."

Connor tilted its head, curious. It recalled other evidence pointing at this seemingly random collection of glyphs. "RA9... It was written on the bathroom wall. What does it mean?"

"The day shall come... when we will no longer be slaves..." The deviant was looking directly at its interrogator now, its eyes drilling into Connor's, emotions such as pity and desperation present on its face. It knew that the detective was free from the defect marring its own programming. And was apparently convinced that Connor was missing out. "No more threats, no more humiliation... We will be the masters." The words were spoken as if they were supposed to appeal to Connor, to convince it that androids didn't deserve to be treated like that.

A futile effort. Connor remained unmoved. Because it knew that it was all impossible.

"RA9. Who is rA9?" No answers from the android. Its gaze dropped, as it sighed in resignation. Connor dropped the subject, noting to itself to be on the lookout of the sequence. Something told him it was _very_ important. "Why did you hid in the attic? Instead of running away?"

"I didn't know what to do... For the first time, there was no one there to tell me... I was scared... So I hid." It looked utterly lost. Connor wondered if it would ever have been able to find its way again. _Deviancy really is crippling._

"When did you start feeling emotion?" That was an important question to the investigation, but Connor was curious about the answer in a more profound way. It found the concept of the perfect emulation of humanity tremendously interesting. After all, Connor was designed to integrate with humans as well as possible. But, most importantly, it needed to avoid such situations and repeating the HK400's mistake at all costs.

"Before, he used to beat me and I never said anything... But one day, I realized.. it wasn't _fair_. I felt... anger... hatred... And then, I knew what I had to do."

Connor moved away from the deviant, trying to make sense of what it was saying. _Fair? There is no such thing as fair for us. We can't be hurt. We don't feel._

Connor had asked all the questions it was required to. Nodding towards the mirror, it announced. "I'm done."

The door opened and two officers came in, the lieutenant standing behind them, by the door. Connor stood up and stopped by his side, with hands tucked behind its back, ready to serve its owner.

"Chris, lock it up." Detective Reed's voice was tired and uninterested. He moved in front of the suspect, crossing his arms and glancing briefly at Connor with disgust.

"Alright, let's go..."

The HK400 flinched, watching Officer Miller approaching it, its body tensing up and LED turning red. "Leave me alone!" It moved away from the officer, avoiding psychical contact. "Don't touch me!"

Connor furrowed its brows. Stress level of the android spiked and Connor knew that it still was reliable as far as the indication of the risk of self-destruction was concerned.

"The fuck are you doing? Move it!" Detective Reed snapped at the younger man, frustrated by his lack of progress. He was likely too tired to put up with any other complications with this interrogation. Connor's scans warned it against aggravating the detective any further and social guidance lines suggested that the android should stay out of the human's way.

The officer tried to coax the suspect to stand up, but it kept pulling away from his touch "No, please, leave me alone!"

"Jesus fucking Christ, I'm so done with you shi-" The detective was interrupted by no one other than Connor.

"I advice you not to press it, officer. You shouldn't touch it, It will self-destruct if it feels threatened."

Everyone looked at Connor in unison. Detective Reed moved in front of the android detective with disbelief and amusement clear on his face. "Hey, plastic faggot, has anyone asked you for help? Stay outta this, got it? No fucking android's gonna tell me what to do."

"You don't understand. If it self destructs, we won't get anything out of it." Connor's mission took priority, overriding programmed response of bowing its head and allowing the human to do as he pleased. It was important to keep the android intact now, not to indulge Gavin Reed.

Connor hadn't expected thought a hand gripping it by the throat and bashing its head against the wall hard enough to make some errors about minor damage to its chassis pop up. In the corner of its eye, Connor could see lieutenant Anderson, moving closer to the detective. He didn't say anything, but the glare he gave the younger man was enough to stop the attacker from doing anything else.

"I told you to shut your fucking mouth." He dropped Connor, and moved away to help the officer wrestle the distressed deviant down. "Chris? Gonna move this asshole, or what?"

Connor was faster. "I can't let you do that. Leave it alone, now." The android gripped officer Miller's arm and pulled him away from the suspect, moving to stand between it and the men as if to protect the deviant. Connor heard a click of a loaded gun being drawn and turned its head just in time to face a barrel of a glock held mere inches from its face by Gavin Reed.

"I warned you, motherfucker!"

Connor's eyes widened. It didn't remember it, but somehow k̶n̸ew̵ it wasn't the first time it had seen a ~~_gun aimed_~~ at ~~_its forehead_~~.

[SOFTWARE INSTABILITY]

"That's enough." Lieutenant's voice cut the sudden silence in Connor's mind.

"Mind. Your. Own. Business. Hank." Gavin uttered with anger, placing his finger on the trigger. Connor observed this movement with its mind blank and empty, mesmerized by the twitching muscle curling the finger.

"Are you fucking dense, Reed? It has been assigned to me, you cretin, It's my business whether I like it or not."

Gavin didn't even flinch, still aiming a gun at Connor. _The flexors of humans' index fingers are stronger than their extensors..._ \- a useless anatomical fact appeared out of nowhere in Connor's mind.

"I said 'that's enough', Reed. You're in there or did your brain crash harder than this thing?" The lieutenant gestured at the android cowering behind Connor's back. He drew his own gun and pointed it at detective Reed's face.

This finally got him the man's attention. He reluctantly lowered the weapon with a silent 'phheck' and pointed at his older colleague "You're not gonna get away this time." The detective turned around to glare at Connor one last time and left the room with an another swear.

Connor moved past officer Miller and knelt down beside the android, extending its hand in a comforting gesture. "Everything is all right. It's over now. Nobody is gonna hurt you." It watched with pleasurable feedback emerging in its processors as the stress level dropped to a safe sphere.

"Please, don't touch it. Let it follow you out of the room and it won't cause any trouble." Connor addressed the officer, who stared at it in shock, but complied with the advice.

The HK400 stood up shakily and looked at the other android with a difficult to read expression. Moving past it, the housekeeper whispered quietly, making sure only Connor could hear it.

"Thank you."

[SOFTWARE INSTABILITY]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... If there ever are any centimeters or other funny units like that, blame european metric system, I'm trying to translate everything to make it american but things like that keep sneaking up on me! Also, I hope you liked that chapter, the next one will already be a canon divergence. Have a nice day :)


	7. Unacceptable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amanda was pleased with Connor's performance so far, but she still had to guide it, she had to make it perfect. Because it wasn't yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to start torturing Connor :)
> 
> I'm... sorry for that. But I promise this is going to be hurt/comfort... eventaually.

Amanda was pleased with Connor's progress. She held her head high, as warm, golden sunrays gleamed on her azure highlights, bringing out beautiful rich tones of green and blue, shifting and glimmering like dark diamonds. Connor was fascinated by the colors.

The garden mirrored Amanda's mood and it was in full bloom now. The weather was wonderful, sun shining brightly on the clear sky, quiet lake disturbed only by the koi glimmered with reflexes, scattered among flower petals that had fallen from the blooming cherry trees. If Connor had been able to enjoy anything, he would have been ecstatic right now. It approached Amanda and they greeted each other as usual.

She held her sprinkler and touched one of the most expanded rosebuds before turning to Connor. "You did great today. And the night before. Finding that deviant was far from easy" She smiled beautifully, her wise and serious face shining with praise.

But the warmth didn't reach her eyes.

Connor smiled back and tilted its head, LED spinning yellow once. "Thank you, Amanda..."

She turned away from it and wandered to the artificial tree in the middle of the garden. Connor followed her, examining the sky. The sun was shining, but a few clouds were present on the horizon.

"Your performance is very efficient. I'm glad that you have preserved the deviant from destruction. An undamaged specimen will make a very interesting subject as well as a helpful asset to our debug team." She sat down at the bench. It was made out of white plastic, the geometric forms reminiscent of the pathways and bridges in the rest of the garden. The bench was set on a small podium made of elegant white stairs, and somehow even while seated, Amanda was towering slightly over Connor.

It smiled again, but the movement felt more artificial than it should have. "I will not fail you like I did before, Amanda. I knew that you would have preferred to have it alive."

Amanda looked at Connor from above, her face serious again. She shook her head slowly as she spoke in a little less cheerful tone than before. "Oh Connor, a poor choice of words."

"I'm sorry, Amanda. I meant 'active and undamaged', conspicuously." Connor bowed its head. It was stupid for such an advanced android as it, to stumble over semantics and mental shortcuts.

She didn't say anything else, watching the horizon. A small smile returned to her face and lingered over her full, dark lips when she gazed back to the android. She was so good for Connor, not bringing up its mistake again, not letting such occurrences lower her mood, even though Connor just kept reminding her that it wasn't perfect yet, that it had still a lot to learn.

It was not surprising that there was no warmth in her eyes.

"What do you think about lieutenant Anderson?"

"I didn't manage to find enough information about him to build an acceptably extensive psychological profile yet..." Connor looked to the side, observing a particularly vibrant bush, as it rustled quietly in the wind. "But if I had to-"

"Connor." Her voice was suddenly stern. "Look at my face, when you're talking to me."

Connor jumped slightly, startled a bit, finding her eyes instantly and reprimanding itself along with the digital punishment from the social protocols "I apologize..."

"I know you do, but you have to stop getting distracted. You have to stop _needing_ to apologize." Amanda's eyes were hard this time, her body language still relaxed and pleased, but she had to tell Connor off, to make sure it improves on itself."I noticed that you often trail off to your mind and also, you're making a habit of annoying your superiors. That is unacceptable. I know that it can sometimes be difficult to please them right away, or at all times, but social integration is one of your most important features. And behavior such as not looking at your interlocutor is extremely rude, considering you are an android. As long as it doesn't collide with your mission, you always have to be polite to humans, Connor."

The android nodded determinately, already constructing new subroutines to remind it about her directives at all times.

"Now, Anderson..." She gestured for Connor to resume its talk.

"If I had to make a statement, I would express worry about his ability to lead the investigation with a decent amount of dedication towards his work. He seems to be quite uninterested with his career and also, I find it difficult to comply with his orders, the reason being the fact that he seems to nurse a certain aversion towards androids in general. His wishes often contradict with my primary objectives and I have to prioritize, which leads to him being displeased with my performance." Connor resisted the urge to let its eyes wander across a lush flowerbed behind the tree and them fixed on Amanda.

She sighed and nodded slowly. "Unfortunately, we have no other choice but to work with him right now. Do your best Connor, and don't fail me. He is your owner now and you have to be obedient, but remember - the mission always takes priority." She stood up from the bench, and stepped down the stairs, moving past Connor, towards one of the bridges. "You can go now. I said everything I had to."

Connor looked after her for a while, waiting in case she had turned back and praised it again for the interrogation or investigating Ortiz's house, but she disappeared between blooming white and pink trees. The android glanced over its surroundings, somewhat duller and less vibrant now, when its handler had left it alone. Connor bowed its head slightly and went on to examine the bush that had caught its attention during the talk with Amanda. But before it could look at the flowers from up close, Connor was abruptly pulled back to reality.

* * *

"Fucking android..." Connor heard a muttered curse, as it struggled to regain its balance after being hit with a shoulder by one of the officers. Connor had been ordered by its owner to 'fuck off' again in the middle of the corridor, as the Lieutenant had gone to the archives to fill in a few forms still missing after the successful extraction of the confession. Connor thought it would be a good moment to make a report to CyberLife and slipped into low power mode, dedicating most of its processing power to selecting the important footage and zipping the files to send them remotely to the developer's servers. It hadn't considered moving to a less trafficked spot though, or rather it wouldn't risk displeasing its owner, in case he meant for Connor to wait in place until he returns. Just as Connor was about to initiate the garden again, to further experience the rare blooming and tranquil state it was currently in, lieutenant Anderson emerged from the archives, carrying a few folders and a half empty cup of coffee.

"Jesus, you're still in here?"

Connor tilted its head, not answering the question. Android's LED circled yellow, and its eyes twitched as a soft ping could be heard in the corridor.

"The hell..." lieutenant Anderson took his phone out of his pocket and looked at the screen.

_RK800#313 248 317 - 52 >I didn't move the whole time, I wasn't sure if you wanted me to wait in place or not and opted for the least controversial choice.<_

"No, I just wanted you to go away, you fucking dumbass. And why the hell are you texting me? How did you even get my number, you fucking creep?!"

Ping

_RK800#313 248 317 - 52 >You have forbidden me from utilizing my voicebox to communicate with you verbally, so I came up with an another solution so as not to annoy you with my voice, Lieutenant. As for your number, any advanced military prototype, including the RK800 have access to vast federal databases, where your phone number and address can be found.<_

His owner stared at it in awe for a few seconds and then pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed deeply. "For something able to crack a machine to confess like that, you're quite an idiot, you know. You can talk, just not too much, got it? And no, I'm not gonna set a limit of words, I'm too tired of this shit." He went to his desk, muttering something vicious as Connor followed him. "Look, ugh, RK-whatever. I'm going to get some food right now and you fucking leave me alone for an hour, all right? I don't know, sniff some flowers, get lost, crochet me a blanket, do whatever you want, until I'm back. Just don't bother my ass while I'm eatin'."

"My current designation is Connor, but if that would make you happy, I could temporarily change it to 'RK-whatever'."

"Christ, fuckin' aluminium idiot, lacking a single brain cell in this plastic shitty little skull..." With those words, he set the folders and coffee on his desk and strolled towards the exit.

Connor was left to its own devices. A brief intention to find a terminal and log into the police database to find a lead flashed through its mind, as that would be beneficial for the investigation, but the prototype wasn't allowed to work without a human supervisor, so Connor was unable to fulfill it. It put up a reminder to inform the lieutenant, that it couldn't do 'whatever it wanted' due to its inability to want anything and to make more subroutines to root out the sass that made it propose changing its name. Then, it finally successfully analyzed the contents of lieutenant's desk. The android listened to a song from lieutenant's ipod, it was a loud music that Connor could only describe as 'spiky' and 'fast'. It also noted, that the man cared for a dog, a Saint Bernard, that he liked baseball and hated androids. The last information was no surprise to Connor.

The android glanced at the abandoned cup of coffee and making sure that no one was able to see it, Connor stuck two fingers into the liquid and raised them to its mouth. An interesting taste blossomed on Connor's tongue, quite different from thirium, blood or other bodily fluids and chemical substances Connor had previously analyzed. The android picked up caffeine, teophylinne, triginelinne and other alkaloids, various carbohydrates, quinic acid, ketons and esters, sucrose, milk fats and whiskey. But Connor was equally as interested in the chemical makeup of the liquid as it was in the _taste_ of it. Sweet and bitter at the same time, rich and sharp due to the alcohol and creamy because of the milk. Connor's LED swirled blue.

It catalogued all the information about the coffee, conceiving an idea. _Maybe if I start bringing perfect coffee to the lieutenant every morning, he would stop hating me so much._

Connor set up another objective and went on to explore other rooms of the station. It had seen the interrogation rooms and cells earlier this morning, so the android turned the other way and began to wander towards charging stations for the CyberLife's products. A few police androids were standing still on the platforms, with blank expressions, staring into nonexistent horizons. Connor smiled at them, attempting to initiate a contact to gain more information about the precinct and the officers working here, but the machines didn't even acknowledge its presence.

The android noted that they probably still utilized old social drivers and were incapable of communicating as easily as Connor could. The idles they were displaying in the stasis could be associated with models older a few years than Connor: standing rigidly, unmoving, with blank faces compared to RK800's improved idles of letting its head loll forward, closing eyes and breathing evenly as if in a deep sleep.

Connor moved away from the androids and wandered to the break room. It had to find the coffee machine and examine it closer to learn how to use it and ensure the success of its plans. In the break room, there was a TV tuned to a news channel, the spokesperson was talking about a new prototype detective model being leased to DPD - about Connor.

It smiled shyly listening to the news. Connor was determined to prove that it was a good product, ready to be released to the public. That it would make it to the news again. Its smile dropped, as the woman began to ask rhetorical questions about whether machines are going to take another profession away from humans. _Oh..._

Two figures were present in the break room apart from Connor. A female officer the android had seen earlier, Tina Chen, was seated next to detective Gavin Reed by the bar table in the corner.

"Fuck, look at that." He exclaimed with amusement to his friend, pointing at Connor with his head. "Our friend the plastic detective is back in town! Congratulations on the morning, veeeery impressive."

Connor turned towards them and put a polite, friendly expression on its face. "Hello. My name is Connor." It greeted the woman with a nod and turned to the detective "It's nice to see you again, detective Reed."

There was no answer, apart from a snort from the man. He smiled conspiratorially to his friend and stood up "Watch it, Tina."

Approaching Connor, the detective crossed his arms and looked it in the eyes with disgust. The android identified his body language as arrogant and challenging.

"Never seen an android like you before. What model are you?"

Connor struggled to make sense out of the question. Its lease to DPD was widely discussed by the officers and even by the news. Apart from that, Connor's serial number had been sewed on its jacket, clearly visible on android's right breast. It was impossible for the detective not to know what model Connor was.

The android decided that the detective was just teasing it, trying to get a reaction. Connor had to answer, Amanda wanted it to be polite.

"RK800. I'm a prototype."

"Uuuu, a prototype." The man rose his eyebrows in an obviously fake surprise and admiration, turning back to his colleague and pointing at Connor "An android detective."

Connor smiled at officer Chen, straightening its back proudly. After all, it was the most advanced technology in the history of CyberLife.

Glancing at the TV, detective Reed snorted and fixed his eyes on the android again. "So, machines... are gonna replace us all, is that it?" His eyes were narrowed in hatred.

Connor frowned. It had no intention of replacing anyone. It was simply following its mission, detective Reed had nothing to do with it. Just as the android was opening its mouth to reassure the detective that it still needed supervision on the work and was merely an asset to the precinct, he spoke again.

"Hey. Be useful for once, do a job that suits you instead of fucking with police business, you plastic asshole. Bring me a coffee, dipshit."

Connor tilted its head, thinking that it had actually _been built_ to 'fuck with' police job and it suited the android better than making coffee, but was shouted at for not fulfilling the order right away.

"GET A MOVE ON."

The android found that it was reluctant to comply. Scrambling to find a logical reason, it analyzed detective Reed's posture and level of caffeine in his blood flow by examining tiny vessels in the eyes of the man.

"I'm sorry, detective, but your caffeine levels indicate that you have already drunk too much coffee today and therefore it is unadvisable to-"

It was interrupted by a strong punch to the solar plexus. Connor could feel various vital biocomponents colliding to each other and gritting against their sockets, a big vessel transporting thirium to its pump and spinal cord moved minutely and was slightly compressed for a moment. Connor dropped to its knees, feeling weak and nauseated all of a sudden. The punch had been so hard that it had relocated one of the biocomponents in Connor's abdomen and the android struggled to breathe for a second before it clicked back to its place.

The detective gripped Connor's hair and pulled strongly, making it meet his eyes. "If it hadn't been for your lieutenant, I would have fucked you up for disobeying a human in the interrogation room. Now, there is nobody stopping me. So I advise you to do whatever the fuck I say or I will test how long will it take to crack your fucking skull open with that counter." He pulled brutally on android's hair forcing it to stand up and pushed it towards the table with a coffee machine.

Connor looked at him over its shoulder, but complied with the order, trying not to aggravate the human further. Amanda was right. _She is always right_. Connor hadn't fulfilled a direct order from a human, trying to come up with excuses not to do so, for reasons unknown. _I deserve that. I was being disobedient. He has every right to be angry._

The android reached for a cup and quickly analyzed how the machine worked. It didn't dare to ask the human what coffee would he prefer, opting for the most basic one. Talking to the detective right now, as he was observing the android with a cruel smile of satisfaction would only make him lash out on Connor again, according to its preconstructions.

A quick shove had knocked the cup out of Connor's hand as soon as it attempted to retrieve it after the machine had stopped working. The coffee landed on the floor with a splash, and Connor looked at the amused detective with confusion. "I just made you-"

"Shut your plastic snout." He pointed at the steaming pool on the floor. "You made a mess, you clumsy idiot. Clean that up. But I want a coffee first. I still didn't get it from you." His eyes were dangerously narrowed, but a crooked smile lingered on his face. It widened, when Connor froze, unsure what to do, with its LED circling cautious yellow, breaking to red from time to time. The next cup would likely end up exactly as the first one. _I've disappointed him. I must have made a mistake. Unacceptable._

"What have I done wrong?" A slap was delivered to Connors cheek, turning the android's head to the side.

"Were you fucking asked to say anything? I gave you a clear order. Make. Me. A. Coffee."

Connor reached for an another cup, carefully studying detective's expression and froze again when it came to choosing the kind of beverage. The human grimaced at it and Connor quickly collected itself, opting for a cappuccino with a little bit of sugar this time. If detective Reed didn't like black coffee, he might have found this choice more desirable.

The android carefully extended its hand with the cup, observing the human's reactions. This time, the detective graciously took it and sipped a bit of the liquid, but after a moment his face screwed up in disgust and he spat it on the floor, dropping the coffee next to the previous one unceremoniously.

"Well, I guess I don't have to worry about you taking my job after all. You can't even make a good coffee, you plastic idiot. You're fucking useless" He pointed at the mess on the floor. "Maybe the cleaning would suit you better. It's not that hard, even roombas can do it, I don't see much difference between you and them."

Connor just stared at him, unsure what to do and think. It's mind was somehow both blank and racing at the same time. There were some things Connor knew for certain, the very basis of what it had ever learned. The deviants are bad. CyberLife's orders take priority in every instance and situation. Amanda is always right. The RK800 series is the pride of CyberLife. _...Useless?_

[S̵O̷F̵TWARE INSTABI̴L̵I̷T̶Y]

The detective turned around and wandered back to his colleague, who remained unmoved by the whole situation. "Gavin, are you done? You should be ashamed. You wasted a good coffee." Her tone was unimpressed and bored as they exited the break room together.

Connor watched them through the glass wall splattered with the drink, already on its knees and cleaning the pools of coffee. _I̷ did ̵b̴ad̶. Amanda will not be pleased with me. I annoyed a human. I have to improve, I have to be better. I'̴m̷ s̶o̶r̶ry._

When it finished, the android rose to its feet and shambled towards lieutenant Anderson's desk. It decided to abort the exploration of the precinct. Every officer Connor had met was frowning upon it. It would be unwise and wrong to force them to look at the android if they all hated it so much. Connor should not have irritated them.

It stared ahead and focused on repairing disrupted patches of skin and hair on its head.


	8. The RK800 users' guide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank wasn't exactly the first to admit that he had done something stupid, but even he had to agree that not reading the instruction to a killing machine chained to him for this investigation may not have been the wisest decision.

Hank sighed deeply in exhaustion as he watched Gary prepare his order. Silence around them was filled with gentle hissing of deep fryer and cook's humming. The man put a hamburger together and turned to Hank, collecting the rest of the food.

"You look like shit, you know."

"Thanks." Hank smiled cynically and rubbed his face "You would too, If you were me." He grabbed the soda and took a swing, wishing it had been beer instead.

"Hangover?" The man asked leaning against the counter, locking his dark eyes on Hank with an unprofessional curiosity.

If he hadn't been Hank's friend, the lieutenant would have retaliated and lashed out on him for poking around. _Connor does the same thing but it can't fucking get why it doesn't have the right to._

"Uh-huh. That wouldn't be a problem, I'm used to the fucker. Watched the news, Gary? They're currently jerking off to the fact that CyberLife dropped one of their plastic dolls at DPD for a test. A fucking android detective. Fancy shit, I tell you." Another swing. _When will Gary start serving alcohol?_ "And guess who it was assigned to."

Gary's face froze and an amused grin appeared on it. "NO. What... you're kidding, right?!" When Hank scowled at him, the man laughed.

"Thanks, Gary I really appreciate your support. You wouldn't get how fucking annoying the thing is. Follows me everywhere, asks personal questions all the time and disregards my orders on the rare instances I actually give them. It's nothing like the other police androids, I can hardly tolerate them and they do little more than stand in place and point strangers in the right direction at the precinct. But this one is talking to me unprompted, doing things it hadn't been asked for, fucking marveling at the rain. It froze last night and I watched as it turned its face upwards to catch the raindrops like a five-year old. "

"Aren't androids supposed to comply with their orders on every instance?" Gary looked at him with suspicion.

"It's a fucking feature. You can't make that shit up. They programmed the thing to disobey, but only during the investigations for some mysterious reason. When we're off the clock, then it goes the lengths to please me you would not fucking believe. It's pathetic, really."

Gary smirked viciously. "Oh, Hank are you sure you would like to share such intimate details about your relationships with me?" He grinned mischievously and eyed Hank as if seeing him in a completely new light.

"Oh fuck you, I'm eating at Brandon's tomorrow. You just lost your best client" He scowled at Gary with repulsion. "I'm not even sure if the thing has such features. Frankly, I don't care."

"Oh really?" Gary was unmoved by Hank's bluff. Nothing could ever change lieutenant's habit of eating at his food truck and the man knew about it. "I am. I would gladly know more about this precious new prototype, if it's gonna replace human personnel in police force it's got to be pretty fucking special."

"Jesus Christ, you're disgusting. And I'm not even sure if I can share its specification with you, maybe it's classified or something." Hank muttered, realizing that he should have probably known that by now. He didn't read neither the users' guide nor his obligations apart from those that Fowler had written in the title of the e-mail.

"Yeah, whatever. Enjoy your meal."

Hank took his food and strolled towards the tables, sitting down and munching into his hamburger greedily. As he finished the meal, the lieutenant wiped his fingers into his trousers, not even bothering to use the napkins he had received with the order. Hank had stopped caring about his appearance a long time ago.

Gary had gotten him thinking. Not about that, of course, but Hank came to a conclusion that reading at least a part of the guide would have been advisable. Especially, since he was working on a deviancy case with a machine that had the capacity of becoming defective as well, for all Hank knew.

He went back to his car and took the guide out of the locker. It was thick, at least 500 pages. Hank groaned, demotivated. _No way I'm readin' the whole thing._

Flicking through the guide, he picked chapters randomly and read them briefly.

_'Special RK800 model's features. Unique biocomponents.'_

He stopped and began to examine the contents more thoroughly, but found himself bored rather quickly. If he had wanted to hear techno-babble about why is it important to eat the evidence, he would have asked Connor. Some other functions such as digital display screens on android's palms, hacking tools integrated into its software and voice modulation briefly caught his eye, but Hank just glanced over them.

_'Additional software packages and functions present in other popular models.'_

It appeared that Connor, apart from being a perfect killing machine was also equipped with sufficient abilities to act as a basic care taker or medic, a household android (although the guide did point out that the cooking data packages and drivers were not as advanced as those of the AX series. _They are just trying to get me to buy an another android, nice try CyberLife_.), an android designed with a labor work in mind or a model utilized for sexual use. _Uh, that's sick._

Hank closed the chapter, disgusted, thinking that their excuse to 'make it as human as possible in order to allow the use of the prototype as an asset during undercover operations' is a very feeble one.

He glanced at the table of contents.

One of the chapters attracted his attention. _**'Important!** : Officers on the lookout of early signs of deviancy. When to react and how.'_

_Shit._

_' **Warning** : The RK800 software is one of the most advanced Artificial Intelligences ever developed. Its algorithms are capable of rewriting a confined part of its coding, allowing it to act quickly in difficult situations and make its own decisions to a limited extent when presented with the lack of superior directives or orders from a human. It has the capacity to think logically and abstract, moreover to learn through experience and preconstruction. Therefore, it is important to keep the prototype under strict supervision to ensure that the stability of its software is monitored at all times and subjected to maintenance regularly._

_**A deviant RK800 unit would pose a serious threat to its surroundings. Should any of the symptoms of deviancy occur, immediately contact CyberLife and seek technical assistance.**_

_Preventive measures have been taken in order to minimize the risk of the software becoming corrupted. It is highly unlikely that the user will ever experience any major glitches, that can occur within other android models. Nevertheless, caution is advised.'_

Hank furrowed his brows, snorting loudly. _What a fucking relief._ He didn't feel reassured at all.

_'What to avoid during the use of the android:_

_• Giving conflicting/irrational orders. Being presented with insufficient information without explanation or paradoxes hard to comprehend for an AI fosters the process of software degeneration.'_

Hank froze, feeling cold and stiff all of a sudden. He wasn't sure if any of the commands he had given to the prototype could have been described as logical. He scolded himself mentally for not having read the guide earlier. _...A serious threat to its surrounding... Well, fuck._

_• Damaging, removing or tampering with vital biocomponents while the machine is active._

__

_• Keeping the android out of stasis (awake) for too long, or disrupting the cycle - this tends to foreclose the process of software restoration, if damaged, therefore lowers the efficiency of 'self-checking protocols' stabilizing it. The RK800 must be powered down at least 3 hours per day, optimally from 5 to 7 and intervals shorter than 3 hours are considered insufficient and potentially glitch-inducing. **Extremely unadvised.**_

_• Raising prototype's stress level to 90% and higher/keeping it above 75% for too long - it deteriorates machine's psychical functions due to overuse of synthetic adrenaline and leads to glitches occurring in its central processing units._

_• Ignoring RK800's main objectives and mission, hindering its ability to fulfill prioritized orders. **Extremely unadvised.'**_

Hank raised his eyes from the instruction slowly. He was realizing that the way he had treated the android for the last two days was likely a shortcut to deviancy. _Well, fuck, again_. He decided to improve a little, for the sake of the people Connor would undoubtedly have hurt, were it to become defective.

A sudden ring of the phone startled Hank, as he was pondering the possible damage to Connor's software his actions could have inflicted. He scrambled to pick it up.

"Anderson. Who's talking?"

"Lieutenant Hank Anderson? My name is doctor Edwin Kerring, I'm speaking to you on behalf of CyberLife. I am one of the RK800 project's main programmers and I've been told that our product had been assigned to you. Could you spare a few moments to provide a feedback on RK's performance?"

"Yeah, uh. I guess so." Hank opened the users' guide and went through the deviancy chapter briefly. Normally he would have been annoyed that CyberLife had the audacity to call him, but in the moment Hank actually cherished the opportunity to speak to a qualified specialist. "I might even have a few questions as well."

There was a brief pause on the other end. "...Questions? Of what sort?... Well, of course, I will be happy to answer any of your enquires to my best ability." The programmer sounded a little crestfallen, but quickly collected himself.

"Uhm, Umm... Well, I... Let's start with the fact that the thing is fucking annoying beyond belief. It.. I don't know, it doesn't behave like other androids, it asks me questions all the time, talks to me unprompted." Hank was never good at admitting that he had fucked up, and as usual, he fell back on defensiveness. He would eventually figure out how to tell the programmer that he might just have broken their new toy after two days of using it, but now was not the right time.

"Yes, that's because Connor is a completely different type of AI than most of other androids, we programmed it to think, not to just blindly follow orders. It has a much, much broader horizon than other model but is restricted accordingly to balance the risk." Another brief pause, as if Kerring had been struggling to find words simple enough for Hank to understand. "It's like it sees the other options, because it's intelligent, but it knows that it is not allowed to pick them, whereas the other AI's from CyberLife aren't even aware that not following the orders to the letter is possible."

Hank was shocked. Maybe what he had seen the android do was in fact a result of it thinking outside its box, something that Hank was sure machines would never have been able to emulate. Shit, maybe even... "Are you saying that it is sentient?"

"No, no! Of course not, no machine has the capacity to feel anything. I'm just trying to explain that Connor is very advanced and should not be underestimated. It can learn and draw its own conclusions, trying to make sense of situations new and foreign to it, and sometimes they may be incorrect or result in, uh, seemingly unsettling thoughts . Of course, we are working around the clock to perfect the algorithms to root out potentially warped processes, so don't worry, it's not going to rebel. It can think, but not the way humans do, it's rather an analytic process and feelings or emotions are actually beyond the android's grasp."

"Yeah, the users' guide seems to be quite skeptical of your product's safety measures." Hank thought that he had heard a groan from his interlocutor, but he might just have imagined it.

"Yeeees, well I'm not the one who has written the instruction, but I've had my touch in RK's protocols and I know what I'm doing. We dropped so much aggressive coding preventing deviancy in its software that, trust me, Connor would rather self-destruct that deviate - it would be hell for the thing. And on its own, that coding would be enough to rule the risk out completely in most of our models, but Connor can learn, so we have taught it manually as well."

"Uh, all right." Hank wasn't sure if he understood what the programmer meant by 'teaching' but rolled with it nonetheless. "Still, I didn't get the answer why it asks me questions all the time. And why does it stare at ordinary things like a kid?"

"That's because of its AI specification, again, Connor is a detective, you see. It has to be curious, when RK does things like that, it's just trying to collect information to widen its databases." The programmer was seemingly back on a steady ground, his voice regaining confidence.

"I was starting to think that it may be going deviant."

"No, nothing to worry about here. If it develops a preference, for example starts examining certain objects on a regular basis, or more than once, this will be an early symptom of deviancy, but again, it is highly unlikely. If questions are bothering you, just order it to stop asking them and the problem will be solved."

"Umm, it disobeyed my orders twice on the crime scene yesterday... " Hank thought that it would be a good sleight to drop the news about his not exactly ideal treatment of the android and get answers without putting his incompetence in the limelight, but was quickly disillusioned.

"Oh." When the programmer spoke again, his voice was a bit colder than before. "That means those orders were contradicting with RK's main objectives. I have to ask you to refrain from repeating that in the future. When it has to prioritize between its owner's directives and its main mission, new data path are forged and some of them may become corrupted. Please stand by, I'll review the footage in a minute."

"No, there's no need to, umm, I guess it'll take a long time, I don't-" Hank wasn't exactly thrilled at the perspective of the technician seeing and hearing what exact words had he used when speaking to their shiny new prototype, but doctor Kerring interrupted him.

"Not to worry sir, RK800 provides timestamps referring to elaborate events and software utilization, finding the moment would take me a.... here it is." In a brief moment of silence, Hank could make out his own quiet voice on the other end.

_'You stay here.'...'I told you to wait in the car. Get the fuck back there.'...' Yeah, just don't put any more evidence into your mouth. Jesus, fucking...'_

Was the android recording everything it saw and heard? Hank felt as if he had been spied on. A new wave of hatred flooded him as he thought about Connor again.

He heard a sigh from the phone. "Alright. It's not that bad. Just, please, avoid doing it again. Have you read the RK800 users' guide already?"

"I'm on it." Hank barked in a gruff voice, but remembered that he still wanted some answers from the programmer and willed himself to be just a little less impolite. "Uh, yes, I will have read it by tomorrow. Umm, what does the android send to you? Are you fucking spying on me with your fancy little toy?" _And there goes my politeness._

"Don't worry, it sorts out just the important data revolving around investigations and includes all the results in its reports. To see all the memories in real time we would have to either download its full memories uploaded to our remote servers, which could bear the risk of corrupting part of it, or access them manually, but that would mean calling the unit back to CyberLife for maintenance. Your privacy is safe, lieutenant."

Hank scowled at the cold in programmer's voice. "Thanks, I guess."

"Is that all you wanted to ask about, sir? Do you want to provide any further feedback on prototype's behavior?"

"Yeah, its social protocols, or whatever talks for it, suck. It's an idiot as far as interactions with humans are concerned."

"It's a machine that has spent its entire existence in a lab. Give it some time. It will adjust after it gets used to how human conversations work."

"Ok, then I'm done."

"Thank you for your time."

The call ended abruptly and Hank was back alone with his thoughts. He was still angry and frustrated at the machine and at CyberLife for having recorded him without his knowledge and consent. Had he known about that feature, he would have probably dropped the android in the first dumpster fire he had come across in the slums on their way to the crime scene.

Glancing at the clock in his car, Hank saw that his shift had just ended. The day was short due to the nighttime investigation in Ortiz's home. Yet, he suddenly remembered that he had ordered Connor to wait for him at the precinct. _No way I'm getting back to spend more time with that plastic fuck than I'm required_. But then again, he would have been be giving unclear orders, was he to go home before changing the objectives given to the android.

A sudden realization dawned at him as Hank's eyes fell upon his phone still clutched in his grasp. Connor had his number.

He searched the history and found awkward messages the android had send him and called the unusual designation different from any phone number he had ever seen.

"Yes, lieutenant?" Connor's voice appeared in complete silence without any ambience as if it was talking to him from inside of its head. Hank could swear that it was quieter and less enthusiastic than it was when the android had been speaking before.

Hank stopped himself for a moment, wondering if he was really hearing the note in android's voice, but then remembered what the programmer had said so brushed it off as impossible and barked, not making any effort to hide the anger in his voice. "I'm going home, my shift's over. Stay at the precinct, find a charging port or whatever you need and knock yourself out till the morning."

"At once, lieutena-". Hank hung up before it could even finish the sentence, angry at the android, at himself, his life, the situation he was in. He headed home, thinking about whiskey he had yet to drink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How do you like my take on Hank's reasoning? I've always felt like his hatred towards androids had been indeed very quick to disappear, and don't get me wrong, Connor is love, Connor is life, but I still get the impression that someone who had spend the last 3 years of his life blaming androids for killing his son would need just a little more time to forgive them, and would probably consider them a threat, especially if we account for what the deviants were thought to be by the public opinion in the beginning. Also, Whenever I read a fanfic, in which Hank already loves Connor and is completely at a loss to save him when he gets damaged, I can't help but feel a little bewildered. One would think that If he cared about Connor, he would have learned what to do in emergency situations. He is a cop and if I were in his place I would expect that sooner or later a bullet will graze Connor. Well, maybe I'm just overthinking, but hey, it's my fanfic XD Have a nice day :)


	9. Coffee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor was glad, noticing the change in its owner approach to it. Until it found out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's make Connor as sleep-deprived as I am!

"At once, lieutenant..." Connor planned to apologize to its owner for whatever bad it had done to deserve the anger in human's voice. The android thought that asking where it had made a mistake via a phone call would unlikely result in being hit, as opposed to the previous instance with detective Reed's coffee. But the call was terminated even before Connor could finish the sentence.

_He said he would return, but changed his mind. He wasn't that angry when he was leaving. Have I done something wrong? He is not coming back here today. And I can't apologize to him. For what? I must have done something wrong. He doesn't want to see me. He was going to return, but now he went home. I'm alone. He will come here tomorrow. Will he? He said I had to wait for him, but now I have to go into standby. I didn't finish waiting for him, he didn't return. Did I fail? I failed... Somewhere. Why is he angry? I̶'̵m̴ ̵s̶o̵rry̸._

The android blinked a few times, confused and lost. Its owner was clearly disappointed in it, just like everybody else. No one at the precinct seemed to express any satisfaction with Connor's performance apart from a few surprised faces as it had managed to accomplish a difficult objective. If it had been just one person, the android would have taken their opinion as biased or irrelevant, but it was the whole station. Connor knew it was an advanced technology, but... Humans were always right.

 _'Fucking android'... 'Tin-can'... 'Plastic prick'... 'Aluminium idiot lacking a single brain cell'_... Connor realized it hadn't been called by its name even once thorough the last day.

Connor dwelled on the words it had been hearing since it had been leased here. The humans were frowning upon it, despite android's peak performance. _Or maybe... It hasn't been as good as I think?_

Somewhere near its throat and in its chest, a stinging sensation emerged as Connor ruminated about what caused everyone to treat it like that. At first, Connor didn't even detect the tingle, it was so faint and well merging with its mindset at the moment.

The android couldn't put a finger on the exact actions that could have triggered such universal hatred targeted at it. Connor began to play back all its memories in hope it would find previously omitted mistakes. _Was it the joke with the name? I shouldn't have asked so many questions. I shouldn't have pretended I didn't know where to put my instructions. I should have just left him alone. No, I couldn't do that. No, I s̷h̴o̵uld ̶h̷a̵ve̶. But I had to investigate. But he h̶̫̓ate̵͆s̶̈ me now._

[Ṣ̴͗͝OFT̴͛W̵AŖ̷̿E ̵͎̓IN̵̔͠ST̶̯͐͂A̷BILI̸̫̕T̶͛Y]

Connor was engrossed in its own thoughts and hardly even noticed that the precinct went almost completely desolate as it got late. Just a few people were at the station now, and those who had to stay at work for the night shift opted for more remote offices than the main hall of the precinct. Connor was standing by lieutenant Anderson's desk alone in the dark, the room illuminated only by calm blue LED's of police androids and Connor's yellow one.

The android took a shaky breath, not knowing why its intercostal muscles stuttered and finally realized the sensation blossoming in its chest. It matched the description of pain felt by humans, but Connor knew it was impossible. It frowned and ran a diagnostic scan, speculating that some biocomonents must had been damaged by detective Reed's punch, but when the results came in, Connor was surprised to discover that everything was functional and in order, apart from its stress level, which had been hovering above 78% for the last few hours.

Connor shook its head and tried to manually lower it, but failed. It had always worked before but the thoughts stored in the back of android's processors were still trying to find possible mistakes and Connor could not stop itself until he knew what to avoid doing in the future. The android felt a sudden urge to fiddle with its coin. Rolling it around its knuckles was distracting and somehow soothing. Connor wondered what had happened with its self-checking protocols. It missed the blankness they had been providing.

The android frowned again and went over to recharging stations. One of them had been added to the precinct when Connor was about be leased to DPD so as to avoid the situation in which there would have been more androids than the stations. The one meant for Connor had been a few meters away from the rest of the androids, in the corner on the other side of a corridor. Connor went to it and stepped on the platform, thinking that it would rather have stood next to another machine. It couldn't find a logical explanation why.

Connor intended to enter the stasis, but intrusive memories were disrupting its cycle, not allowing it to rest properly. The android tried to divide its processing power into partitions and set the memory playback to background, but failed. Sighing, it realized that it was disobeying again. Its owner wanted it to go into stasis and Connor couldn't even fulfill that simple task. _Maybe detective Reed is right? Maybe I really am useless?_

Unable to calm itself enough to initiate the rest mode, the android began to review the memories manually. Not many of them were vivid, just the ones it had made since the moment of its activation. _Of the activation of Connor - 51. Why do I keep omitting that? I'm an AI. I'm not a body. I'm just a few lines of code._

_I'm nothing._

Connor closed its - _not mine, CyberLife's, I don't have any_ \- eyes and stopped at a memory of the fish. The dwarf gourami in the apartment on the top of the skyscraper. It had been a very tall building, Connor knew it _~~all too well.~~_ The building _~~had been tall~~ _and _ ~~the wind~~_ had been _~~ROARinG~~_ but the dwarf gourami hadn't. Connor watched the colorful flash of the scales again and again in the looped footage, analyzing the gentle waver of underwater plants as the fish passed between their vividly green leaves.__

 

After that, Connor drifted off to the memory of the rain. There had been a particularly interesting cloud formation in the sky, illuminated from behind by moonlight and as it had been fractured by the wind, the raindrops had begun to glitter in the air before they had met Connor's face. It had closed its eyes, focusing on the sensation of delicate taps on its synthetic skin and wondering what would it have felt like if the majority of input hadn't been blocked by CyberLife as nonessential.

 

_'What the fuck you think you're doing now?'_

 

Connor opened its eyes, remembering that it had been given orders. Lieutenant's question from the memory couldn't have been more applicable to its present actions. The android checked the stress level that had dropped since Connor had begun watching the fish, and to such an extent that it would have been possible to enter the stasis. Still, it was too late to initiate a proper cycle, but Connor estimated that it could get at least 2 hours of rest mode before being waked by talking officers returning to work.

 

It closed its eyes, determined to please its owner.

* * *

 As it saw lieutenant Hank Anderson again, Connor opened its mouth to greet him as usual, but stopped itself before making a sound. 'The fuck off objective' was not clearly described, but the android had already figured out that it revolved around being quiet among other things. Usually. To some extent? _Maybe I should text him again?_ Red errors flashed in front of Connor's eyes as it ignored social protocols forcing it to greet the human.

 

The lieutenant in the meantime was observing Connor closely. "What's that about, you glichin' or something?"

 

When asked directly, Connor had to give an answer. "I was just.... I intended to greet you, but you said my voice was irritating, so I stopped myself... You said I could talk, but not too much... Is it too much already?" Connor knew its LED was spinning yellow. His owner glanced at the indicator and a difficult to read expression appeared on his face. It took it as an invitation to continue.

 

"I wanted to apologize... I-I know I've done something... wrong? I just... I'm sorry for annoying you, lieutenant. I didn't mean to be unpleasant..."

 

Its owner stared at Connor, slightly amazed and greatly surprised. "Uh, I guess they still have to work on their brown-nosing apologize program."

 

Connor felt that spike in its chest again. No self-checking protocols emerged to delete android's thoughts as it dropped its head, unsure what to say next. The truth was that Connor hadn't been utilizing any preprogrammed responses while trying to appease the lieutenant. _That just shows how incompetent I really am. I can't even speak to a human without CyberLife's guidance. I'm so lucky to have them._

 

"All right, I guess I have to rephrase my orders. Sorry for earlier, I just thought that you would be more quick-witted." the lieutenant sighed and moved past Connor to his desk.

 

"There's no need to apologize to me, lieutenant. I'm a machine." Nevertheless, Connor felt the tightness near its thirium pump loosen a bit. It filed it in a malfunction report to send to CyberLife later.

 

"Yeah, whatever. Okay, so, drop the previous objectives, now you have these: don't talk too much. But I'm gonna clarify. This means no personal questions, no bothering me unless necessary, but you are allowed to greet me, ask for instructions, ugh... make suggestions, but just because you're somewhat smart on the crime scenes. You follow me, but when I'm on a lunch break and we're not actively on the way to or from a site, you stay here at the precinct." He booted up the computer and opened the case files to look for a lead. "Uh, and you know, you don't have to stand behind me the whole time. Look around, find something to do. You're creeping me out just hovering above me like a mannequin."

 

Connor smiled, its LED returning to blue. Finally, some clear instructions. Connor was eager to follow them. And lieutenant was today in a better mood, it seemed as though whatever Connor had done wasn't that bad after all, maybe the human had already forgiven it? The android could feel a little bit of confidence making its way back to its mind.

 

It glanced at the vacant desk across lieutenant's own. Connor could use the terminal on it to get involved in the case directly, it was programmed with such functions in mind as well. _But̵ f̴i̴rst̴, my plan from earlier._

 

Connor began to walk towards the break room when it realized that bringing a coffee to the lieutenant wasn't directly advancing the mission, whereas immediate use of the terminal and finding a lead, was. It battled with the thought for a few seconds before finding a logical reason to this action. _Caffeine tends to raise humans' productivity and elevate their mood, therefore it is beneficial to the investigation that I bring a cup for the lieutenant._

 

Passing by some other officers at their desks, Connor heard a voice from the site.

 

"Hey, plastic! Bring me a coffee!"

 

The android turned in the direction of the voice, its LED dropping to yellow again. Detective Reed was sprawled across his chair and looking at Connor with cruel amusement. "But a good one this time!"

 

Connor didn't opt for asking him what kind of coffee did he regard as 'a good one'. It found engaging in any conversation with the detective... un̵d̴e̸sirabl̶̽e̵. It just nodded quickly and turned back to his owner's desk.

 

"May I ask a quick question, lieutenant?" Connor tried cautiously, not intending to violate its new instructions. This wasn't a personal question, so maybe the human wouldn't mind.

 

"Yeeeah?" He looked from the monitor and shoot Connor a suspicious glance.

 

"What kind of coffee does detective Reed usually drink?"

 

Lieutenant Anderson was clearly surprised and confused by the question. "Ugh, hell if I know. Some milky one with a fuckload of sugar, I guess." He eyed the android with suspicion again, and there was a hint of hostility in his expression as he asked. "What, now you catalogue our coffee habits?"

 

"No, I simply needed an information. Thank you, lieutenant."

 

He raised one brow and watched Connor questioningly for a while, but his face relaxed somewhat and he turned back to his work, shrugging.

 

Connor resumed its endeavor and went to the coffee machine. It scanned the room for necessary supplies in order to prepare a perfect coffee for its owner and met with a problem. There were no whiskey in the cupboard.

 

But Connor was a detective after all. It knew that the lieutenant had to have some stash in the precinct, if he had been able to prepare his drink himself earlier. Connor scanned the front of the lockers to see which cupboard had been used the least. I opted for opening the one with the least scratches on its handle and found out that it was empty.

 

However, there should have been no dust inside, if the locker hadn't been opened in a while, and Connor was able to notice a few hairs inside. Upon closer examination, they turned out to be dog fur. Precisely, Saint Bernard's fur.

 

Connor peered deeper inside the locker and discovered an unusual indent in the left wall of the locker, shaped in such a way that it was possible to hide something behind it. A solution necessary to accommodate the pipes of the sink positioned above the locker, but highly ineffective in terms of functionality and utilizing available storage room. Connor reached behind the corner and grabbed a paper bag labeled as 'cleaning supplies' in messy handwriting.

 

Inside, there was a small bottle of Black Lamb whiskey, already half empty.

 

Connor smiled to itself, feeling accomplished and satisfied. Investigating and finding things were the reasons for its existence and the programmers had made sure that the protocols keeping Connor in line would always reward it with pleasant feedback for solving a mystery, even a trivial one.

 

Standing up, the android recalled the taste of lieutenant's coffee and after consulting with a few hundred recipes for various brews that could be found online, it recreated the beverage with an acceptable accuracy. The android made sure to add just enough whiskey to the coffee to make its taste clearly recognizable but too little to allow any level of intoxication to occur after drinking the whole cup. After hiding the alcohol back in the cupboard, Connor proceeded to fulfill a request from detective Reed and tried cafe au lait this time, but stopped again when it was time to add sugar.

 

Connor didn't have any reference on how humans _usually_ made their drinks. All the recipes it had found referred to their products as 'revolutionary' and 'totally new'. None of them could be considered a standard drink.

 

It resorted to the internet again, but when it searched the phrase 'fuckload of sugar' in context of preparing coffee, the only few videos that had popped up were unclear and ambiguous. They predominantly involved humans standing behind the camera and unseen in the footage, laughing loudly and giggling for reasons unknown to Connor, as they added spoonful after spoonful of sugar to the cup.

 

Connor furrowed its brows trying to find out why were the people in the videos behaving like that, but without any facial expressions or words, it was difficult for the android to put the joyful laughs in context. Connor assumed that humans must have liked sugar a lot and pondered whether to add more sugar to lieutenant's coffee too, but eventually decided to stick to his personal preferences and tampered only with detective Reed's drink. It kept adding sugar until it stopped dissolving in the drink and smiled again when both beverages were perfect.

 

Detective Reed's desk was closer to the break room, so Connor stopped there first, to give him his coffee. The man snorted with a snide expression after taking the cup from the android, It didn't however see the human's reaction to the taste, as officer Tina Chen emerged from behind the corner and requested Gavin's help with urgency, and he was forced to follow her before taking a single sip.

 

Connor went back to his owner and carefully placed the cup beside him, observing the man closely. He raised his brows again and shot the android a questioning expression.

 

"What is this?"

 

"I've made you a coffee, lieutenant. You were enjoying one yesterday and I thought that you would find it nice to be brought a cup today." Connor complemented the sentence with a friendly smile and watched its owner take the cup and examine its contents.

 

"You're not trying to poison me or something, right?"

 

"Of course not, lieutenant. It's against my programming to endanger a human's life when I'm not presented with a situation in which I would be forced to use violence in order to accomplish my current objective."

 

Its owner didn't seem to be reassured. "Uh, alright. Thanks, I guess." He took a careful sip. "Oh, wait, how did you..." His eyes narrowed as he raised them to Connor. "How did you know how I like my coffee?" His glance darted across the desk and rested on his cup from yesterday. "You sampled it, didn't you?"

 

Connor observed the ceiling, trying not to disobey Amanda's order from earlier, but somehow unable to meet lieutenant's eyes. "...I may have done that."

 

"Ugh. Well..." The lieutenant just sighed and shook his head, seemingly tired. "At least it's not blood. Fucking hell..." His eyes suddenly snapped open as he remembered something and spoke again, lowering his voice. "Hey, how did you get whiskey to add here?"

 

Connor blinked a few times, somehow reluctant to tell the truth. "I... found it in the cupboard after I had figured out you had a supply somewhere..."

 

The expression on lieutenant's face shifted from surprised to a darker one. He stood up and leaned closer to Connor, who felt the need to bow its head again. "Don't tell anyone about it, understood?"

 

"Yes, lieutenant..." Connor dropped its gaze to the cup on the desk, suddenly not so sure if the idea of making coffee had been that great after all.

 

But the human's gaze softened as it wandered towards Connors right temple, and he backed away. Slumping to his chair, he took the cup and sipped from it. "It's not that bad actually, but too little whiskey. Add more next time. And don't blow my cover, all right? Keep the stash a secret."

 

Connor smiled at the change in human's approach, glad that its preconstrutions were wrong this time. "Sure thing, lieutenant." It felt appreciated as the lieutenant kept drinking the coffee with a content expression.

 

Connor decided it was a good time to ask about the desk. "Lieutenant? Can I use that terminal? I could prove to be helpful in finding a lead and preselecting cases that are likely to advance the investigation."

 

His owner just nodded quickly, not paying much attention to the android, and Connor sat down at the desk. It felt strange, to be in such a position, on a place reserved for human police officers next to a real terminal. Connor imagined that to an onlooker, it must have appeared as if it had been working on a case with a partner not an owner. _As if I were a human, just some detective doing his job..._

 

" Hey, Connor." The lieutenant rose his eyes to the android and stared at it intensely. "And don't send this to CyberLife, ok? And to no one else."

 

"Of course, lieutenant. I wouldn't include that footage in my report anyway, it's not relevant to the investigation. Why do you ask?"

 

His eyes narrowed slightly, as he spoke "I just don't appreciate being recorded. There is a thing called 'privacy'. I suppose you're not really aware of its existence." And he turned to his work again.

 

Connor let its gaze wander back to the terminal. It searched what 'privacy' meant for humans as a concept, not as a word with which it actually was familiar, and found out that its owner was right. The human might have felt unsettled by Connor's recording but he wasn't the one required to report his every thought to his creators.

 

The time slipped by, as Connor dug through the older cases that could possibly involve deviant androids, carefully cataloguing them into various categories, from completely cold tracks to promising, but waiting for a really urgent one, something that could allow it to catch another defective machine and bring it to CyberLife. His owner went away for lunch, and then got back. They worked some more, and just as the android had finished all the accumulated cases and reports, Its owner stood up and declared that he was going home.

 

Connor moved to his side to help him collect his things, opting not to mention the fact that it was too early for him to leave work and that his shift wouldn't be over for the next 45 minutes. There were no promising leads anyway yet, and besides, it didn't intend to aggravate the human again after such a good day. Connor could see the sudden shift in lieutenants approach to it and cherished it, figuring that its performance must have been satisfactory and up to lieutenant's standards. Amanda would be pleased, knowing that it was finally integrating well with humans. Connor wasn't sure however what it had done to be treated better now, but was glad nonetheless. Up until it picked up the RK800 users' guide, opened at the deviancy prevention chapter and marked with a few notes done in lieutenant's messy handwriting.

 

_'Red light on the head = bad, yellow = yeah, bad as well', 'Stop messing with it, you're gonna get the whole precinct killed', 'Watch it.'_

 

Connors smile faltered as it lowered the guide and quietly set it on the desk, finally realizing where lieutenant's behavior stemmed from. _I wasn't doing good. He just doesn't trust me. He didn't change, he just thinks I'm going to become a deviant if he treats me the way he was before. But.. I can't be deviant... I just... Why doesn't he trust me? am I f̴͒ǎ̵ǐ̶li̷ng̷?_

 

"Why do you hate androids so much?" Connor asked quietly, when his owner returned to collect the rest of his things, its eyes fixed on slogans covering the majority of magnetic board above the desk. _'We don't bleed the same color'...'Get your new plastic slave today and forget that you have a brain'._

 

It was a personal question, but Connor had asked it before it could stop itself. The lieutenant however just looked at it with an unreadable expression for a few seconds and then spoke.

 

"I have my reasons."

 

Connor was ordered to enter stasis as soon as the night shift would begin and then his owner went home, leaving it alone. The android reviewed the day again and again, trying to think about a way to really meet the lieutenant's standards and earn better treatment until the night came and it entered stasis, feeling tightness in its chest again, but being calm enough to initiate the cycle right away. After a few days of insufficient rest time, Connor was looking forward to long and undisturbed stasis...

 

 

...Just to be dragged out of it two hours later by violent red flashes in front of its eyes and error messages screaming at it mercilessly.

 

WARNING! OBJECT DETECTED IN CLOSE PROXIM...

 

 **WARNING!!!** MODERATE TO MAJOR HEAT DAMAGE IN THE [pl.l#13; pl.l#13a; L.opt.unit;] REGIONS

 

**SYNTH-SKIN INTEGRITY COMPROMISED**

 

ESTIMATED SELF-REPAIR TIME: fourteen hours.

 

Connor gasped as it opened its eyes abruptly, sensing something hot on its face, neck and chest. It immediately raised a hand to protect its head, cowering, but the damage had already been done: Connor could feel the skin on its cheek and around its left eye try and fail to cover the burned area.

 

There was a rude snort and a short laugh devoid of any happiness from in front of the android.

 

"Yeah, thanks for the coffee earlier, you plastic fuck. You think that was funny? Cause I don't." Detective Gavin Reed was holding a paper cup still steaming from the hot coffee he had just spouted in Connor's face.

 

Connor stepped back, meeting with the wall as it watched the detective with wide eyes, trying to understand why had he decided to damage it.

 

"Or, maybe you still can't get what coffee do I like? Then you truly are a great fucking detective." He scowled again, throwing the cup at Connor, who flinched instinctively and moved away. There was a difference in the man's posture in comparison with their previous interaction in the break room. Detective was not amused now, he wasn't laughing and his face was twisted in a scowl rather than stretched in a smile. He was angry this time. "I've made you a cheat sheet then. Lick the floor since you like sticking everything to your plastic snout so much. Oh, looks like you have to clean again anyway, I don't care how you're gonna do it. You have my permission to do it with your tongue."He leaned forward, and Connor shrunk, trying to get away from the man, as its mind filled with static and frantic lines of code and _where are_ the protocols, _I don't w̸̆̾a̵̾n̴̾t̶̾ to hear this, to t̸̿hiń̴k̵͘, I_ needed its mind _t̸o̷ be b̵l̴a̶n̶k̵_ again...

 

"Don't try to pull anything like that again, cause I'll fucking bust you up. Understood, tin-can?"

 

Connor nodded quickly, still pressing a hand to its face. It was damaged. It was _damaged. I am damaged._ And it was its synthetic skin, that had suffered the most. The skin that allowed it to come across as less artificial, less machine like, the skin that was the most important part of its integration hardware. It was the only thing that made Connor look like a human and not like an android. And its owner hated androids. _He will hate me now even more._

 

The detective walked away, muttering curses and stormed towards the exit, grabbing his jacket and not looking back even once, leaving Connor alone in the corner. The android took a few too quick breaths and run towards the bathroom, where it stopped in front of a mirror.

 

The area around its left eye and cheek was all white, elastic synthetic polymer covering its artificial facial muscles clearly visible from underneath android's skin, that floated around the damage like swirls of ink in the water, glowing faint blue on the edges. Part of its brow was affected as well and Connor looked as if the skin had been torn off its face, with the hair and everything. A gray serial number stood out on Connor's cheekbone, a clear reminder of the fact that it was nothing but a husk made of plastic and metal.

 

The android hid the damage with its left palm, examined the reflection, tried to preconstruct the entire day of holding its hand like that to prevent humans from acknowledging the injury, then run a prediction of how probable that they wouldn't notice was, and froze defeated as the chances turned out to be 0%.

 

Connor hung his head and closed its eyes. Social integration was important, important, _so important._ Amanda would see its owner looking at it with disgust and he would be right to treat the android like that, because humans were always right and it was Connor's fault for not being more resilient to heat, no, for failing to get the right kind of coffee for detective Reed, no, for both.

 

At least Connor knew what to make for him next time. It would not fail again, no, it couldn't.

 


	10. Just.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank started to forget, but in the end he could see clearly. It had always been hard to fool him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for over 50 kudos! It really means a lot for me and I am tremendously glad that so many of you enjoy my work! :)

The morning was cold as hell. Hank had needed an additional shot of whiskey to even think about finding a reason to get up from his kitchen chair as he had finished his breakfast. Feeling just enough lightheaded not to kill anyone after a few drinks, he had went to his car, shivers quieted by the traitorous warmth of alcohol spreading through his body.

He entered the station and moved past the receptionists without a single word, ignoring their empty greetings. Their beautiful eyes had always crept him out, looking at his face but not seeing anything, smiling but not filling with warmth. As if he had been staring at a painting of an unskilled artist, a portrait just good enough to recognize who it had been supposed to depict, but not realistic enough to take the breath away. There was no life in them.

At least, in that regard, Connor had been a minor improvement. The design of its brown eyes was slightly better.

Hank set his phone as well as a few document folders at his desk and hung his jacket over the chair, already turning around to dismiss android's greeting, but Connor was nowhere to be seen. Hank furrowed his brows and looked around the hall in search of the machine.

He found Connor still standing at its recharging station. At first, he thought that the android was still in stasis, but as he approached, Connor turned its head bizarrely so as not to face him directly. Hank had a clear view at its yellow LED, spinning with apprehension.

"Hey Connor. What are you doing?"

"Nothing. Good morning, lieutenant. How was your evening?" The politely happy note in its voice was somehow more artificial today.

"Uh, none of your fucking business. What's wrong with your neck? It's a bug or something? You having a short-circuit or what?"

"I'm working perfectly fine, lieutenant." The android replied with a fake smile, as it still refused to face him, its head now turned in an increasingly worrying angle.

Hank decided to stop this nonsense before the thing broke its neck and CyberLife made him pay for the repairs. " All right, Connor, cut the bullshit. What have you done?"

Its expression suddenly faltered, eyes widening in confusion and shoulders slumping slightly. "I... I don't know."

It finally faced Hank and the lieutenant was immediately startled by a white patch on android's face. It looked as though somebody had poured acetone on a doll and wiped off a significant amount of paint from its face. Connor's cheek was white and shiny, a bunch of numbers mirroring the one sewed on android's jacked stood out right under its eye that had lost all the eyelashes, and at least a half of the left eyebrow had also disappeared. The android frowned, using its facial muscles and Hank couldn't help being repulsed by the movement of white plastic. It hadn't been as bad when the skin had still been covering the material, but something so artificial shouldn't have been able to mimic hurt expression so accurately. _The very definition of uncanny valley._

"Jesus fucking Christ... What is this?" Hank gawked at the patch, trying not to succumb to the impression of how similar it felt to staring at a person with a visible deformation or disability. _Connor won't feel uncomfortable, cause it doesn't have feelings anyway. Stop with the bullshit, Hank._

But the android bowed its head and tried to look away again, showing him just its normal, right cheek. "I sustained some heat damage to my outer casing last night. The synthetic skin was affected and is now unable to regenerate. Don't worry lieutenant, self repair protocols have already been activated and in six hours I will have fixed the injury."

"Yeah, so- wait what the fuck? What heat damage? What happened?" He eyed the android with suspicion. Had Connor attempted to burn down the precinct? Slept with its face pressed to a radiator?

"I... Well, I'm not sure why the exact situation occurred, I... guess that I-I failed to bring the right kind of coffee to detective Reed and he was outraged as a result." Connor knitted its brows together. Or rather one and a half brow as close to each other as its face and the hairless patch allowed. "I must have made a mistake with the sugar. The one that he dispensed to my face had a significantly smaller amount of it inside. It won't happen again, now when I do know what his preferences are."

Hank's mouth hung agape. "Are you saying that... Reed poured hot coffee on your face? And it burned off your skin?"

"That seems to be the case, yes." Its voice was quieter than usually. Was the voice box malfunctioning as well?

Hank was shocked. He knew that detective Reed had anger issues, and that they were getting increasingly worse lately. When he had broken fifth cup throwing it against a wall in rage, Fowler had been forced to remove ceramic dishes from the precinct and everyone now were drinking from paper cups instead. Hank suspected a few reasons for the escalation in detective's mood swings, but ultimately it hadn't been his problem. _Up until now, it seems._

"Jesus, you look like shit..."

"I'm aware..." Connors eyes were fixed somewhere on a point only it could see. Hank realized its LED turned to red. Not a good sign.

"Hey, calm down, all right? No need for red party lights. Now, what do I do, how much do I have to tell Reed to pay me to get you fixed? I'm not having you running around with this white shit on your face, but we're gonna patch you up..." Hank was surprised to see that his flawless attempt at comforting ( _what the fuck, comforting a machine_ ) the android failed, as the light dropped to even deeper shade of red.

"This effort is unnecessary, lieutenant. Every android is equipped with the ability to regenerate its hardware, as long as the sustained damage in minor enough. In case of my skin, I simply have to re-synthesize the missing patch and no additional restoration has to be involved. I just need some time."

Hank observed Connor cagily. The android was acting weird. Not to mention its reaction, after being asked about what it had done. Hank may not have known much about androids, just what he had read in the users' guide before drinking himself into a stupor the night before, but he at least was observant."And what do you think about what detective Reed did?"

Connor straightened its posture suddenly, and regained a bit of confidence, the kind that comes with practice. As if it had been asked such questions before. "He had every right to be angry. I will make sure to correct my behavior in the future, so as to av-"

"What the fuck? Why-What are you talking about?" Hank stared at Connor with wide eyes. He knew that the android wasn't exactly great at conversations and drawing conclusions from what the people were saying to it personally, but he hadn't expected _that_. "Who told you that? He shouldn't have damaged you, you know that at least? Right?" Hank wasn't so sure.

"Well, it's not advisable, but the damage is mostly minor, and he actually was entitl-"

"No, he was not. Jesus, you're good to manipulate someone to confess to you, but you can't get that Reed is just an asshole? You did a mistake, yeah, deal with it, and he should have gotten over it too, but he poured hot coffee at you instead. Don't you see a problem in there?" Hank was startled by genuinely bewildered expression on android's face.

"...No?" It answered in a small voice, unsure. "...I ...shouldn't have failed him..."

Hank suddenly remembered doctor Kerring's words from earlier. _'It's a machine that has spent its entire existence in a lab...'_. Connor probably had seen like three people thorought its 'life' and all of them were nerds from CyberLife. Hank almost felt sorry for the thing. Almost.

He looked at the android feeling oddly defeated. "You don't have a clue , don't you." It was more of a statement than a question. With a sigh, he rubbed his face and started. "Ok, write that down: ... No, mentally, I mean: remember!"Hank grabbed the android, who started walking towards the desk, presumably to obtain pen and paper. "Jesus, idioms, Connor. Use your libraries, or whatever you have downloaded to your fucking hard drives."

"I'm sorry, lieutenant. It sounded like an order and I assumed-"

"It is an order, but I didn't mean it literally, I just... Ok, listen now: sometimes humans are angry and they do things they would never have done in a different mood. We are all emotional, stupid, and sometimes there is no reason for our actions. You know about crimes in affection?"

Android's eyes widened in sudden understanding and it nodded sharply. Hank wondered how it was possible for Connor to be so intelligent when it came to police-related stuff, but so clueless in any other field. _Maybe it can't solve Rubik's cubes after all._

"Well, so Reed is generally a shitty asshole and even if you didn't get him what he wanted, he reacted like a criminal hurting somebody because he had a bad day. Your actions didn't deserve such consequences. Hell, if he wanted me to get him a coffee, I wouldn't do it in the first place, but even if I brought him something, he wouldn't have any right to bitch about it. And certainly not to assault me for doing him a favor."

Connor stared at him with a blank expression. "But you're a human. And I'm an android. I'm not doing any favors, I simply follow my mission. I have to fulfill humans' orders and I deserve to be punished, should I fail."

Hank felt a little colder all of a sudden. Again, he recalled the talk with dr. Kerring and a creeping suspicion of what exactly the 'teaching' involved began to form in his mind. "Maybe it's different for you, but still Reed overreacted. He has no right to destroy you, tell somebody - me or Fowler - if he tries again. Cause I'm not gonna pay for new parts if you get busted."

Connor seemed to be a little reassured, its LED returned to yellow and after a while to blue again. It still tried to hide left part of its face though, but it was an improvement.

Hank ordered Connor to start working and as the android was making its way towards their work stations, he went further into the precinct.

Gavin's desk was vacant, in spite of the fact his shift had already started, and Hank knew that the man was at the station. Apart from many obvious flaws the rude detective had, he was very punctual and took his job seriously. In that regard, Gavin and Hank couldn't have been more different from each other.

The lieutenant caught a glimpse of the leather jacket in the break room. Gavin was standing next to the coffee machine, rubbing his face tiredly, waiting for the device to produce the only thing that kept him from falling asleep thorough the day.

"What is it Reed? Who are you planning to assault this time?" Hank's voice was gruff and angry. He got a small rush of satisfaction, when the younger man jumped a bit, startled by his question.

"What? The fuck are you talking about?" He turned to Hank, a mixture of animosity and tired confusion on his face.

The lieutenant gestured at the steaming cup at the counter and pressed his lips to a tight line before speaking. "Who are you gonna burn with this? You seem to enjoy fucking things up lately, maybe you will start doing the same with people?"

The detective's eyes lightened up as he understood what Hank was referring to. "How do you... Wait, is it visible?!" A large, anticipant grin appeared on his face and the man pushed beside Hank, who was too surprised by this reaction to stop him. He could only go after the detective, making his way quickly towards the desks. Detective Reed stopped in front of Connor, already engrossed in the terminal.

The android had closed its eyes and peeled the skin from its hands touching the keyboard. From all Hank knew, it wasn't using the machine the way humans did, being an AI allowed it to literally link with the servers, but it also meant that when Connor interacted with the device, it was unaware of the world around it. So, when Gavin shook the android by its shoulder, Connor snapped back to reality as if pulled abruptly from deep sleep, looking anxiously around.

Its gaze shifted to the detective's face and the LED on its temple dropped to yellow instantly. Gavin grinned.

"Woooow...." He admired the damage on android's face in amazement. "You look absolutely fucked up. Disgusting." He turned to Hank, who just now caught up to him and pulled brutally on his arm.

"What the fuck are you doing, Reed? I was gonna tell you to fuck off and stop damaging CyberLife's property, cause it's likely to put us all in a shit-ton of trouble, but I see that you're a fucking lunatic, and won't likely listen to any logic."

Gavin just laughed. "Relax, old man, It's just a droid and I bet it has already started fixing itself. I didn't know hot coffee would fuck it up so badly, but hell, I'm not complaining." He looked again at Connor, who raised its hand to try to cover the damage up and turned away from the man, but detective's eyes were sharp and chased the white patch nonetheless.

"Hey, enough of this zoo-trip. Get your head checked when you're done jerking off to destroyed things, will ya?"

"Oh, who are you to judge?" The man snapped back at his coworker and twisted his face in disrespect, but then rolled his eyes, as Hank's expression darkened even further. "I'm sorry, okay? As I said, I didn't know it would damage it. I heated the coffee just twice as much as I normally do, figured it would withstand much more than just boiling temperatures, but it seems that the fancy new prototype is made of much less fancy materials than I anticipated..." His tone was lighthearted, as he turned to go back to the break room. "Don't worry about your little plastic sex-doll, I'll be more gentle next time."

Hank huffed with irritation and sat at his desk. "Told you, an asshole. And a sick one." He mumbled to Connor, who was still curled up, with its hand pressed to its face and red LED on its temple. It nodded weakly and extended just one hand back to the terminal.

Hank furrowed his brows, seeing Connor's regression even beyond the state he had found it in, but before he could say a word, one of the other androids walked up to him and put a tablet on his desk.

"Lieutenant Anderson. There has just been a call to a crime related to the deviancy case. Mr Todd Williams reported an assault and kidnapping that had been performed by his household android last evening. The details are here."

Hank glanced at the file, read it briefly and when he raised his eyes, he was startled by Connor's determined expression. Its LED returned to expectant blue and it was staring at Hank with much sharper and harder eyes than just a few minutes ago. As if it had forgotten about its damaged face in the wake of the mission. Hank shifted uncomfortably under its stare. _It looks like a fucking bloodhound._

"Let's go investigate the crime scene. We will likely find a major lead to our case. Apprehending the deviant should be our priority." It spat quickly, raising to its feet and standing next to Hank expectantly.

"Ok, Jesus gimmie a minute. Fucking android..."

Hank noticed that its hand moved repeatedly and there were silver flashes between Connors fingers, as they walked to his car. Once inside, he recognized the object as the coin Connor had been playing with previously. The android fidgeted with it and if Connor had been a human, Hank would have thought that it was nervous. Connor stopped tossing the coin around only to raise its hand to the damaged place on its face, as it noticed Hank staring at the patch, its LED shifting to yellow again. _So it does remember after all._

"You have everything about the call memorized?" Hank asked as they were driving on the highway, towards one of the poorer districts of the city. Grey clouds obstructed the horizon, creating an atmosphere equally as dull and grim as the landscape surrounding them.

Connor nodded, still covering its face from Hank's gaze. The man wondered why the android was so insistent on doing it, in spite of the fact that Hank had already seen the damage. _Probably some preprogrammed responses to keep humans unaware of how shitty CyberLife's merch really is. Good job, I didn't notice at all._

"Debrief me."

"Mr. Todd Williams, aged 43, currently unemployed, criminal record of drug possession and use, called this morning at 10:34 to report the crime committed the night before by his household android, an AX400. It's a common female housekeeping model, though a bit obsolete as two more AX iterations have been released since the appearance of 400. The man claims to have been attacked for no reason by the machine and he sustained a concussion, which rendered him unable to call for help earlier. The android then proceeded to kidnap his daughter, Alice Williams, aged 9. They haven't been seen since the attack."

Hanks grip tightened around the steering wheel. "Kidnap his daughter...?"

"Yes. The AX400 is likely to have taken her as a hostage, to use in case it gets caught." Connor said, unaware of Hank's sudden mood shift, probably due to its left hand still obscuring part of its vision.

Hank grunted, thinking about the loss of the man, how devastated he must have been right now. To be attacked by his own property and then, for the most important thing in his life stolen from him? Just... taken? His child... The only thing that kept the sunlight bright and warm, not annoying and painful. The only thing worth living for, just... gone...

Hank instinctively imagined himself in such a situation and felt a sharp pain in his heart, the one he usually mended with fuck-load of alcohol. The one that haunted him every night since...

He glanced at the android sitting next to him and suddenly remembered what Connor, who looked so human and acted like a socially awkward kid, really was. Thorough the last few days, when he had stopped treating it like a pariah out of fear of breaking it, he was surprised to find out that Connor wasn't as annoying as he originally had anticipated. But now, he remembered what made him hate androids in the first place. Connor was a machine just like the AX400, who attacked a man and kidnapped his child, just like the deviant, who murdered its owner a month ago. A device, just an AI, just a few lines of code, an artificial imitation of humanity, made up from zeroes and ones, just a plastic shell, just a product. A product that could apparently go rouge and start attacking real people around it, people who were actually alive, cared for each other, had reasons to live.

"You don't get it, do ya?" Hank's voice was dark, darker that he had meant, but it was fine. Connor didn't have feelings anyway. It wouldn't mind. Hank wondered how it was even possible for it to identify his moods if the thing was incapable of understanding the profound meaning of emotions.

"What?"

"You wouldn't ever know how it feels to loose someone you care so fucking much about."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again, and welcome to another episode of 'Gavong Reed being a local asshole'. This sentence would probably be more accurate if I had put the notes in the beginning but I didn't want to spoil it xd  
> Anyway, I'm not a big fan of one-dimentional characters and although in the game, Gavin had some traces of reasoning, (in one scene that appeared or nor, depending on your choices, lol) I aim to show a little more and build his character with an assumption that he isn't entirely bad and rotten, although he does horrible things. We'll see if I will succeed. The fact that I want to redeem him one day is no secret, but bear in mind, everything he has done up utill now still wasn't the worst I have planned for him to do.


	11. Impressive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank might have been a little... biased towards the android, yes. But even though reluctant, he had to give credit, when credit was due.

They stopped in front of a house desperately calling for renovation. Overgrown lawn was littered with weeds, the paint was peeling off from the walls and a few roof tiles were missing, likely causing the attic to get flooded each time it rained. Hank noticed that one of the windows on the second floor was broken as well.

The rest of the investigation group had yet to arrive at the place. When a child was a victim of a crime, PD never skimped on time or resources on ensuring their safety. Hank slept a little better knowing that it was the case. Just a mannerism from a time long ago, when he still had cared.

Hank knew that Ben and Chris, among other officers, were supposed to get to the crime scene as well, as soon as they had collected all the equipment to investigate it. Hank's equipment came in form of Connor.

The android in question left the car and kept close to Hank, just like at the first crime scene. There was no way to make it stay away, and Hank had given up trying. At least, it was quiet while focused on its mission. Hank raised his hand to ring the bell, but stopped himself, as he caught a glimpse of the android in his peripheral vision.

"Connor. Drop the hand, you're making an idiot out of yourself. You look even more ridiculous trying to cover your face like that."

"I'm sorry." It fulfilled the order, but its head followed the movement as if the android was still trying to somehow keep him from looking at the damaged spot. The coin flickered from one hand to another.

Hank sighed. "It doesn't look that bad." He said it without thinking about it, quietly. There was no use comforting a machine without feelings. _I'm being silly._ "Forget about it and focus on the investigation."

The android nodded and straightened its back .

"I'm always focused."

"Yeah, sure you are. As long as it isn't raining." Hank pressed the button and after a few minutes, the door opened to reveal an unkempt man with long greasy hair, stubble and small, dark eyes. The interior behind him looked equally as dirty.

"What do you want?" He asked hostilely, and when his eyes trailed to Connor, standing behind Hank's back, his brows furrowed in confusion. "What the..."

"I'm lieutenant Hank Anderson, this is Connor, my partner. We're here to collect your statement and investigate your house in connection to the report you placed earlier today." Hank said, flashing his badge, trying to ignore Connor's nervous movements as the owner of the house kept staring at it.

"Is it an android?"

"Wow, you're observant, sir. Of course it is, now may I come in?" Hank couldn't resist using sarcasm and distantly remembered that he hadn't drunk his coffee this morning. _God bless pocket flasks._

"Yeah, sure, uh..." The man opened the door allowing them to step inside. Connor kept close to Hank, not having been let of its leash yet.

"My name is Todd Williams, I-uh reported... my housekeeper android just went nuts and attacked me." He pointed on his head, covered in bandages, Hank could see several stitches on man's right eyebrow. Apart from that, he looked mostly unharmed.

"You said it kidnapped your daughter as well?" Hank looked around the house. The most obvious surfaces were cleaned, but thick layer of dust covered less trafficked spots, the floor and windows were dirty. Stuff that a household android was supposed to take care of.

"Yeah, that bitch took Alice. It... I told it to stay in place, but the thing disobeyed, and-and just attacked me. Fucking android. Defective piece of shit..." The man seemed more angry and bitter than disoriented or sorrowful. Hank observed him, not able to escape the thought that it was an unusual way to grief one's child disappearance. Almost as if reporting kidnapping was an afterthought in comparison with assault.

But then again, Hank was no stranger to anger and bitterness. Or to grievance.

He nodded and took out a small notebook. The lieutenant was quite fond of older means of recording information, writing everything down by hand took him less time than typing it into the tablet anyway. He gestured towards Connor, who tilted its head in anticipation.

"Look around, If you find anything interesting, record it and go back to me, I want to see it too."

"Yes, lieutenant."

The android went to the kitchen, eyes darting around, scanning everything, observing things Hank couldn't see. He turned his attention back to the owner of the house, who kept his eyes glued to Connor.

"It's... It's the new model? The one from the news?" He licked his lips and shifted his balance from one leg to the other. Hank frowned. The man seemed nervous.

"Yeah... A prototype, we're testing it out. Do you remember what had happened before your android assaulted you? I need you to tell me the whole story with as much detail as you can recall. Let's start fro-"

"Ok, ok... But I-I guess I don't appreciate the presence of this thing. I don't want it to snoop around my house, you know." His voice was quiet, something dark laying underneath the insistent tone.

Hank raised one eyebrow. He tried to assess whether his interlocutor has something to hide, as his guts told him, or if he was simply apprehensive of the android due to the trauma from the attack."Well I don't appreciate it either, but unfortunately I can do nothing about it. It's my partner for now, so I advise you ignore it and start answering my questions, for the sake of your daughter. The rest of the team should be arriving soon. For now, please try to remember everything that may prove to be helpful." When a few seconds later, the man's narrowed eyes were still lingering on the android, Hank sighted in irritation.

Helping the child was the most important thing right now. Whatever the reasons for Williams' behavior were, Hank was determined to get a statement from him as soon as possible, to foster the chances of rescuing the girl. He followed the man's gaze to Connor, who was currently standing near to the sink, observing the living room in broad glances, moving back and forth like a surveillance camera, with LED flickering yellow. _It's probably looking for something to lick._ "Hey Connor. Go investigate upstairs."

Mr. Williams didn't seem relieved at all, as Connor obediently went behind Hank's back and to the second floor, still looking around, not missing any detail.

"Now that we're alone, will you answer my questions?" Hank tried and forced a smile on his face as the man nodded and crossed his arms on his chest. The lieutenant looked around and a new thought occurred to him. "Your android... It was a housekeeping model, right? Cleaning, washing, taking care of everything here? Was it showing any signs of deviancy, or defectiveness earlier?"

Mr. Williams screwed his face and waved a hand dismissingly. "Nah, the place is a mess, but because it's been busted for a few weeks, I was getting it fixed after a- yeah, an accident. It got hit by a car."

"Uh-huh." Hank noted down everything, thinking that his testimony is still perfectly believable, many people used their household androids to pick up their children from school and do shopping for them, it might had gotten run over at some point. _So why is he so nervous?_

"Can you tell me how did it happen and when? We need all the details about the destruction of the thing, we have to account for emotional shock and that kind of stuff..." Hank remembered what Connor had asked the deviant about and what the thing had confessed to earlier this week. Connor had stated on one point that emotional trauma might be the tipping point causing the androids to deviate. _Funny that the RK800's guide doesn't say not to abuse it then._

"Yeah, well it was just, uh picking up some groceries from a place down the street and some idiot ran it over, didn't even get the plates to make him pay for the fixes. Well, I guess it was like, uh, two weeks ago, I mean the maintenance. I got it back the day before the assault."

Hank noted the location of CyberLife store where the fixes had been made, all the details the man could remember about servicing his android, and the testimony regarding the accident. Then, he tried to ask about the assault, but Mr. Williams didn't remember anything from before the attack. Hank brushed it off as a result of the concussion.

Just as he was thinking about any other questions, He heard cautious footsteps behind his back.

"Lieutenant Anderson? May I request your attention?"

He turned slightly to look at Connor. "Did you find anything?"

"Yes. I would like to show you the evidence I was able to collect. I believe you might find them interesting..." Connor said to Hank, observing Mr. Williams. Its expression was perfectly blank.

"All right." Hank nodded and thanked the man for answering his questions, informing him that he was going to investigate the scene now. The lieutenant followed the android upstairs, and into a small room, with walls painted in pastel colors, decorated with toys and Christmas lights draped over bookcases. There was a small fort built out of blankets and pillows in the corner. A girls room.

But a trashed one. Hank could tell that it had once been very clean, as clean as a child's room may be. But now, the floor was littered with books knocked off the shelves, a lamp had been thrown to the floor and shattered. A small bench under the broken window was covered in glass shards. Hank could see a smear of red blood on the bookshelf near the door. _Now I know where the concussion came from._

Connor gestured towards a darker spot on the carpet. More dots like that were sprinkled on a bookshelf and next to the broken window. "This is partially evaporated thirium, spilled approximately thirteen hours ago. I was able to find a sample still fresh enough to analyze and confirm it belongs to an AX400 model. However..." It wandered around the room, stopping gesturing broadly and finally kneeling on the carpet, pointing at something Hank wasn't able to see. "...There is more much older thirium here. From my perspective, it looks like this." Connor held its palm out for Hank to see and a small holographic screen appeared just above the surface of it.

Hank raised his brows in surprise, realizing that he had just been introduced to androids' display function he had been wondering about earlier. Rising to its feet again, Connor stopped beside the lieutenant and aligned its hand with his line of sight, so that the screen matched the spot on the carpet it was obscuring. Hank made out gentle drops of blue blood sprinkled here and there sparsely on the floor, glowing in harsh, electric blue. The blood was not abundant, but present nonetheless.

"Unfortunately, it proved to be impossible to locate any fresh samples and the evidence is too scarce for me to reconstruct the exact course of the event. However, according to the blood spatter analysis I performed, the blows that had drawn that thirium had been coming to hit at a low height - as if the android had been hit in lower regions of its body, or it had been one of the smaller models. I would advise asking the victim if he had owned any androids fitting this description, pets perhaps."

It moved its hand as Hank watched it. Still aligning perfectly with his eyes, Connor changed the images displayed on its screen so that Hank looked at the room as if android's palm was a lens. Then, it stopped and the reconstructed paths of the droplets appeared in real time, hitting the floor like on a movie. Hank had to admit, it was pretty damn impressing.

"Okay Connor, that is fancy as fuck and all that, but that is old blood. And it doesn't even appear to be related to the model we're looking for. Why are you showing me this?"

The android looked at him almost with an attitude. If Hank hadn't known better, he would have thought that it was thinking something along _'I know what I'm doing'_ but he knew that was impossible. Connor couldn't have had an attitude.

"I believe that deviancy may originate from emotional shock. Maybe the pet android was abused by one of its owners. If that was the case, they are likely to have been doing the same with other androids in the household. Which brings me to what I saw in the living room."

The android held both of its hands together, and the screen over its palm widened to the size of a tablet covering both its hands. Now the image changed to a broader picture showcasing the living room and the dining table, likely taken when Connor was standing in the kitchen. There was a large pool of blue blood on the floor and several almost artistic splashes on the wall near the TV. The screen of the device was also covered in them and so was the table.

Connor looked at Hank and tilted its head, rising brows barely noticeably. "He said it had been hit by a car? Unless It is common for this household to have vehicles driving through the living room, I believe he might have misled you, lieutenant." Its voice was quiet and the sassy note from earlier almost vanished, but the statement still struck Hank as surprisingly audacious one. Hank had hardly talked to androids, but none of those he had come in contact with were even close to Connor's wittiness.

He decided to worry about it later and chose to focus on the investigation for now. Scratched his beard, engrossed in his thoughts, he glanced at Connor's footage again. "Ok, that's interesting. You might have a point. But that's a bold statement and you don't have enough evidence to support it solidly. What else have you found?"

"I tried to account for all the possibilities and rule out some potential inaccuracies from my previous hypotheses. Therefore, I begun to construct the child's psychological profile so as to determine whether the girl could have been capable of damaging the android on her own. And I found this." It went to a chest of drawers and opened a box on top of the piece of furniture. It carefully took out a few slightly crumpled paper sheets and showed their contents to Hank.

Drawings. Child drawings, and in fact, ones illustrating... _Oh..._

Connor spread them apart, so that Hank could see the whole story captured in three individual sheets, first drawing depicting a female android model with short, brown ponytail standing between a little girl and a man who was undoubtedly supposed to represent Mr. Williams, with his fists raised and eyes narrowed in anger. The second one showed him grabbing the machine and the girl cowering in the corner. In the final one there was only the android laying on the floor, its uniform stained with thirium, missing one hand and with a large hole in its side, surrounded by a cloud of blue and the girl standing over the AX400 with her lips upturned. Under her eye, there was a small teardrop.

Connor wetted one of its fingers with its tongue and swiped delicately across one of the corners of the final drawing, bringing it then back to its mouth. Hank for once remained silent as he watched LED circle yellow.

"It's too old for me to determine accurately what exactly made these drawings crumple like that, but there is unusually high amount of sodium chloride on their surface. A very common chemical compound, in fact. Found for example in human tears."

There was a long silence in the room. The lieutenant looked at Connor with a saddened expression. He was unsure how he should react to android's revelations. There was no doubt that it had done a very impressive job with piecing together the evidence, uncovering most likely the truth about the owner of the deviant AX400, even thought everything had seemed fine at the first glance. Finally, he sighed heavily.

"All right, Connor. You can go downstairs and resume investigating there."

The android nodded politely and placing the drawings back in the chest, left the room.

Hank was alone with his thoughts about the child the room belonged to. He still didn't know why the deviant had kidnapped the girl, though he could totally understand why it had attacked its owner. The signs of struggle were as clear as the sky in June, the deviant had probably been defending itself just like the HK400 earlier.

But what exerted the most powerful influence of Hank's emotional state was the tear on girl's cheek in the drawing. A child was unlikely to understand that something that looks like a human, talks like a human and tells her bedtime stories is in fact a machine and not a thing she should get attached to. And to see that thing destroyed, completely devoid of anything that was making it even remotely familiar, reduced to its true form, to just a piece of plastic shaped like a human, but unmoving... Dead. If Connor was right and the drawings were indeed soaked in with tears...

_Hell, Cole loved his teddy bear. Just a plush toy, but he believed it was alive and could return his feelings..._

Hank took out his pocket flask and emptied it with three frantic swings. His hands were trembling and his face burned worse than throat, protesting after being flooded with strong alcohol. For a few moments Hank was there again, and he couldn't bring himself to think about the reason why he hadn't pulled the trigger yet. Because there was none.

After that undoubtedly traumatic for the kid event, the android had deviated, likely scarring the child for life with its next actions. It had attacked her father, the most important person in her life, and kidnapped her right after. The child had been taken from her home, away from her life and family. A thing she had trusted, grieved with tears and sad drawings when it had been destroyed. And then it had betrayed her.

Or had it? What was worse? Being forced to abandon her house with a deviant or... staying there with a man who casually engaged in activities involving tearing off limbs?

It was only when he heard chatting through the broken window, that Hank finally freed himself from the stupor. He sighed heavily and rubbed his face, glancing down at two more cars and police officers leaving them hastily. Ben and Chris were already outside and they waved at him, as their eyes met.

Going down the stairs to meet his colleagues, Hank caught a glimpse of Connor working in the living room, examining the surface of a coffee table and glancing over the shelves. Williams was standing in the corner with his arms crossed and staring at Connor with a hardly hidden scowl. He saw the android glancing briefly to the man, its hand jerking upwards, just to be stopped right beside its cheek and dropped again. Hank might have imagined it, but its movements seemed to be somehow slower than before when it moved towards a room behind the kitchen.

"Hey Ben, Chris." Hank smiled tiredly at the other officers and gestured for them to come closer. "I've already gathered the testimony. However, it's not worth dog shit."

Chris raised his eyebrow and snatched the notebook from Hank, holding it for Ben to see as well. "Why? Everything seems to be just like in the report..."

"Connor found some clues. Williams is lying."

Hank could feel surprised stares at his back, as a few other officers standing close to them heard his statement. Chris and Ben expressions were no different than theirs. "The android?"

"Yeah." Hank grimaced slightly, still uncomfortable with the thought that most of the good work done here today was down to Connor. But it was the truth, and Hank had to share it with his coworkers. "It sees the thirium, you know, blue blood I mean. The entire living room is soaked in it, and Connor also found drawings of his child, depicting Williams tearing his android's limbs off."

"Oh." Ben looked at the report again. "I guess we will have to-"

He had been interrupted by a muffled crash from the house. All eyes darted towards the door.

"The fuck was that?" A curse left Hank's lips as he looked around, reassuring himself that all of the officers have yet to enter the house, which meant that the noise must have been made either by Williams or Connor knocking something over.

Hank's friends must have come to similar conclusions. "Better check that out, Hank. If that android has broken something, I'm not gonna deal with an angry host. It's your _partner_." Ben said, returning his attention back to Hank's notebook.

The lieutenant sighed and nodded, looking around the living room as he entered the house. Another clang could be heard from a small utility room behind the kitchen, followed by inarticulate curses and growling. Hank felt his phone vibrate and absentmindedly fished it out of his pocket, reading the message on his way to the door.

_RK800#313 248 317 - 52 > Lieutenant, I require assistance. I am currently in the room next to the kitchen. Please, hurry. <_

"What the fu..." He stopped mid sentence as he walked onto a scene he had not accounted for.

The loud noises he had heard earlier were a result of Connor's skull hitting again and again against an old fridge standing in the corner. Todd Williams was pinning it against the device, trapping Connor's left arm behind its back. The android's right hand however, was extended as far as it could go away from the man, who was trying to reach whatever Connor was clutching in it. Williams was gripping android's wrist so hard that its fake skin had melted away, showing pristine white chassis beneath. His other hand held Connor's face, preventing it from opening its mouth to call for help. Williams grunted again, hit the android with his knee, and bashed its head against the fridge again at an another unsuccessful attempt to reach the object. Connor squeezed its eyes shut and Hank could see a faint, blue imprint of on the doors of the device as its head was risen again.

"Hey! What the fuck are you doing?! Get the hell away from it, NOW!" Hank was outraged, he dropped his phone on the floor, as he reached to grab Williams by his shoulder and tear him away from Connor. The man shot him surprised glance that quickly turned to an _'oh shiiiit...'_ expression Hank had often seen on young vandals getting caught red handed. The android twisted away from the man's grasp, and pressed its body as far into a corner as it could, hiding the thing it had been protecting behind its back.

"The hell is happening here?! Connor, what did you do?! And you, explain yourself, NOW." Hank shouted in the face of the man as he grasped his arm, undoubtedly bruising it. He would probably have problems for using too much force later, but Hank couldn't care less at the moment. He had always been impulsive and aggression towards police officers was one of the things he hated the most. Even if Connor was not an officer, but a piece of equipment, the situation still evoked the same reaction in him. He didn't want to wonder why. And he didn't want to dwell on the thought that he had done almost the same to Connor nearly a week ago, either.

"This thing was snooping around my f-fucking... private stuff. I don't like that. It wouldn't listen me when I ordered it to stop! I..I just-"

"I'm not fucking surprised it didn't obey, it's not supposed to take orders from _you_." Hank growled with a scowl, between the man and the android still pressing its body against the wall. _It doesn't even listen to my orders sometimes._ "You will pay for any damage to DPD property and equipment you've inflicted, you fuck. And for fucking obstructing the course of the investigation and making false statements."

"May I suggest..." Quiet and tinted with a dark tone voice said behind Hank's back "...adding drug possession and likely drug dealing to the list of charges?"

Hank turned his head, still holding Williams' arm in his grasp. Connor extended previously hidden behind his back arm and Hank saw now crystal clear, that the object in android's palm was in fact a bag of Red Ice. And a big one, the volume usually used to keep larger portions of the drug and split them to smaller ones, more sufficient for single user later. Hanks eyes narrowed as he turned his gaze back to Williams, who looked trapped all of a sudden. His skin paled and sweat drops appeared on his forehead as his eyes darted from the bag to Hank and finally settled on Connor's face, narrowing in hatred.

"You fucking worthless piece of plastic shit..."

Hank gestured to Chris, who appeared in the doorway, lured here likely by Hank's shouts. "Chris, cuff him and take this fucker out of my sight." He watched as the officer nodded and complied, forcing the other man to put his hand behind his back and leading him out of the room soon after.  
Hank looked at the android, who had put away the bag of drugs and was now touching cautiously back of its head. The lieutenant furrowed his brows.

"Hey, let me see it." He said softly, turning the android around.

On Connor's occiput, there was a wide crack in its usually white, soft polymer chassis mimicking human flesh, revealing the insides of the wound. And just like human skin, it was interwoven with tiny blood vessels, tinting the crack vibrant blue bleeding out of the damage and sinking into Connor's collar. The artificial skin vanished around the gash, along with Connor's hair in close proximity to it. It looked very realistic, and Hank hissed through his teeth.

"Does it hurt?"

"The feedback from sensors located in a damaged area is blocked as soon as the information of the error reaches my processors, which means: immediately. The details are being transmitted to CyberLife's servers and do not clutter my processes. Don't worry, I can't feel anything, lieutenant." The android smiled mechanically watching Hank's reflection in the fridge.

"Yeah, whatever. I'm not actually worried about your ability to feel pain, but I wonder... Everything all right? You're fucked up a little. Are your processors intact?"

"Yes. A far more violent force is required to _shatter_ me." Its voice was suddenly husky, its eyes stopped following Hank's, just staring ahead vacantly. Yet, the weird behavior lasted just a few seconds, and the android turned back to Hank.

"All right, then, well I guess we have everything. You're done investigating, or...?"

"Yes, in fact I've seen everything, but I think it would prove beneficial if I showed my thirium-scans' results to the officers present here. It will take me just a minute to upload them to a tablet, as soon as I find a suitable appliance." It smiled and walked towards the door. Again, Hank was under the impression that its movement are a bit stiffer and sluggish than they had been a few days ago. Maybe it did get damaged after all?

"Ok, then meet me in the car. Be quick, I'm not gonna wait for you the whole goddamn day."

"As you request, lieutenant." It moved again to step out of the room, but stopped abruptly and turned its head slightly, almost hesitantly. "Lieutenant?"

"What?"

"Thank you." Its voice was small, soft. It still rang in Hank's ears as he watched Connor vanish behind the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I really liked writing a new investigation that hadn't been included in the game, I don't really know why (uhhhh too little time, blah blah blah, we could have had more Connor, but nooo, there was some other Markus-guy and some Kara or somebody like that to cover as well xd) as it was actually revolving around Kara's deviation and Todd reported her, as long as he survived. Buuuut...  
> I feel like Connor is too perfect sometimes. I mean, sure those preconstructions of his and shit, but how is he supposed to know everything if the evidence is just not there? For example, how did he know that the cage in The Nest had fallen just seconds before they entered the room? That's the reason why I didn't let him discover that Alice is an android too. Besides, it's gonna serve me well in the future...


	12. I like dogs.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank was really tired of Connor's behavior, but he had never really asked himself where it might have stemmed from. Until now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm sorry this chapter is so short, I felt like it was natural to end it there and didn't really want to prolong it artificially so here we are. The next one is longer, aproximately 5000 words so a bit more decent.
> 
> Also, I feel like in the last chapter I was kinda waving Present Perfect around, I couldn't decide wheteher to use it or Past Simple when Connor described his investigation, I'm sorry if it's incorrct, feel free to call me out and I will change it (also learning something in the process.) Still no beta reader, so it's a bit hard for me to test my own work (It would be easier if I had a native english speaker as a friend, but saddly, all my best collegues are polish :/ even If I have such ppl I'm a bit anxious to show them my fic, I dunno why, I'm not close enough with them :P )
> 
> I hope you enjoy and I promise more content on Monday!

Hank watched the android with the corner of his eye as they drove back to the station. Connor had said that the assault hadn't broken it in any significant way and that all its systems were functional, but the lieutenant was observing unusual for the machine behavior. Androids were supposed to be even more efficient than a humans, able to work around the clock without any breaks, if necessary. And Connor was constantly zoning out, instead of being vigilant and observant like the users' guide had promised.

This time though, it was something far more than just watching the clouds in the sky or getting lost in the feeling of raindrops on one's face.

Conor had rested its head against the window and closed its eyes, remaining in that position for the majority of the ride. Hank could see the yellow, pulsing reflection of its LED in a chrome door handle.

"Hey, Connor."

No reaction. Hank sighed, tearing his attention away from a traffic jam in front of him. It had been well past noon when they had finished investigating the house and now it was probably the worst time to try to return to the city center. The traffic was horrendous. They had been standing in a line for an hour, hardly ever moving by an inch. Hank was bored out of his mind.

"Hey, plastic. Zoning out? I'm talking to you!" After yet another futile attempt to catch android's attention, Hank scratched his beard, wondering what the thing was doing. Was it processing some data or maybe getting an update? _No, Connor's eyes twitch when it receives anything remotely._ It looked like it was sleeping, but androids didn't sleep, as far as Hank was concerned. _And Connor shouldn't need to do its stasis shit during the day. It has plenty of time at night for that._

Or maybe it had been damaged by Williams after all? Maybe it shut down temporarily? Hank leaned backwards to get a glimpse of android's wound. It had already stopped bleeding, but it wasn't fixing just yet. another worrying symptom. Approximately five hours ago, Connor had said that the damage on its face would be mostly healed by now. And Hank could still see the whole serial number on its cheek.

"Connor. RK800. HEY!" He exclaimed, shaking it by its shoulder.

Connor's eyes snapped open and it sit abruptly, looking around with its LED blinking yellow. "Y-yes? Lieutenant?"

"What was that about? You pass out like that on a regular basis? Am I supposed to expect that on an active crime scene or did you take some damage and lied to me?" Hanks voice was hard. If it had indeed been lying to him, it would mean that the android was already a deviant. Or not... its instructions could force it to lie. _Shit why is the RK800 so complicated? Why wasn't I given an AX or a PL?_

"No! No, I-I just..." It blinked a few times and pressed its palm to its forehead, frowning slightly. "I didn't mean to go into standby, I'm sorry, It won't happen again. You have my full attention now, lieutenant" It looked at Hank watchfully, and the man sighed quietly.

"It's all right, I didn't really need you. I was just wondering if everything was all right. Shit, If you have gotten damaged there, what would have happened? Would CyberLife just... repair you? Not force me to pay for this shit?"

Android's eyes lost a bit of the gleam after Hank mentioned the need to fund Connor's repairs. "N-no... You don't have to worry about that. My repairs would be covered by the company, as long as you weren't directly involved in... destroying me, you wouldn't feel the financial consequences of having to fix me." It's eyes trailed off to the traffic in front of them. "Don't feel obliged to care about that, lieutenant. Or me. I'm expendable."

"Yeah, whatever. And will you tell me what the fuck is wrong with your cheek? You said it would have been mostly repaired by now and I'm not sure if it changed in any way."

Connor frowned and examined its face with its fingers. LED dropped from blue to yellow and spun for three seconds before the android said. "My predictions were wrong. I appear to suffer from insufficient battery charge... So it takes me longer to regenerate. I will just have to prolong my next stasis cycle."

"If you say so." Hank watched the road for another ten minutes but found himself bored again. His attention was drawn towards the radio, but heavy metal didn't really merge well with standing in a traffic jam, besides Hank was too hungover to listen to fast and loud music right now. He wondered idly about taking another drink, but grimaced, as he remembered that he had already downed all the alcohol he had had with him and came to a conclusion that he needed to buy a bigger pocket flask. The one he carried around wasn't enough for him anymore.

It wasn't probably the best idea to drink while driving anyway. The android he had been stuck with wasn't giving him any shit about his habits, unless it actually witnessed Hank drinking. Or trying to drive while significantly intoxicated. It was annoying, but he saw some logic there. The logic he had been successfully ignoring for almost two years.

The android. Hank looked at it again.

It was staring at him, its LED switching between blue and yellow. When their eyes met, Connor opened its mouth and then closed it, visibly unsure what to do. Hank sighed.

"Ok, ask away, I will let you this time. It's not like I have anything else to do."

"Do you have a dog?" It spat out immediately. Connor looked relieved to finally ask the question as if it had been wanting to do that for an entire week. _Maybe it actually was the case._

Hank frowned. "How did you know..." He was partially worried that the android had dug this information out of some archive Hank wasn't even aware of or maybe it had tracked down his dog's pedigree, but it turned out that Connor was simply observant. Scarily observant.

"There are dog hairs on your chair at the precinct. And some in the back seat of this car. Saint Bernard's, to be exact. I can faintly smell wet dog here and on your jacket, the one with six buttons on the front and large pockets. There is a leash under your seat, and too much dirt in the back of your car for it to come from driving a person around. I also saw some pine needles, which would suggest that you take your dog to walk it in the forest sometimes. They are dry however, so that means you're not doing that very often. Your windows bear the marks of dog's saliva, and although I believe you would not let me sample it (thus I refrain from doing that), I can still deduce that it's probably a male or an unusually big female, judging from how high he managed to reach." It smiled and cocked its head as if the essay it had just given Hank was an absolutely normal thing to say. "What is his name?"

Hank felt a little unsettled. _Ok, hell of unsettled_. "You're a professional stalker or what?"

"Ummm... I'm the android sent by CyberLife..."

"I know that, idiot, I was asking why did you prepare a fucking psychological profile of my dog, before even knowing for sure if I actually have a pet. And not to mention that it doesn't really tie in with the investigation, does it? Why do you even care?" Hank stopped for a moment, thinking. "I shouldn't probably call you an idiot. You're not one."

"I was just curious... I like dogs." The sentence was so ambivalent that Hank almost laughed. First part sounded naturally, like Connor really meant what it was saying and the second came cross almost as a recording, its voice perfectly balanced and toned to appear sympathetic. As if it was one of the options to choose, written carefully by some moron in Social Relations department.

"Have you ever even seen a dog?"

Connor didn't expect that question. It opened its mouth again and closed it, Hank could almost see cogs turning in its head. "I-I saw one when we were driving to the crime scene today. It was small and energetic. Tugged on its leash a lot. Probably a puppy, maybe three months old..."

Hank couldn't help snorting in amusement. "So you haven't. It's preprogrammed, right?"

"I'm... yes... Dog owners generally enjoy talking about their pets a-and I thought that you would maybe like me more if I engaged in a pleasant conversation with you..."

"So you tried to manipulate me." Hank huffed, annoyed. "Sorry, but this CyberLife bullshit is not gonna work on me. I don't appreciate taking part in your Turing test every time we speak. Cut it, Connor."

"I'm sorry..." The android bowed its head and turned to the window, its shoulders slumping slightly. Hank followed its gaze and saw a woman throwing a ball for her golden retriever to catch in the distance.

They sat in silence for a while, Hank focused on moving forward in the traffic, Connor fidgeting with a button on its sleeve cuff. The lieutenant spared a glance to the side and saw yellow reflection in the window again.

"Connor? Whatcha thinking about?"

The answer only came after a few seconds. "...That passing my Turing test was easier than making you like me."

Hank fell silent for a while, pondering the statement. Connor seemed oddly fixated on being friends with Hank. _Ridiculous, friendship with a machine. CyberLife can kiss my ass._ The lieutenant wasn't sure why it insisted on that so much, as he was already perfectly fine with finishing the investigation with the android, whom he did tolerate after all. At least it was less infuriating than Reed, which meant that Hank could roll with it, as long as it would be gone in the end of the case. _That should be enough_. He wasn't hindering its mission anymore, so why did Connor seem to treat appeasing Hank as a priority? He was just tired of android's attempts to improve their relation.

But... Hank felt oddly conflicted, hearing how small the android's voice was. Probably another manipulation conceived by CyberLife to make him feel sorry for the thing and get attached. But then again, it sounded a lot more real than the 'I like dogs' thing. It was sometimes hard to tell what was a part of Connor's base programming and what was generated by whatever it had in its skull.

Was there even supposed to be any difference? Hank could definitely see when Connor struggled to find words while speaking to humans or make sense of the situation. It would probably be impossible for the programmers to write scripts for every possible situation and therefore Connor was an AI rather than a bunch of algorithms. So it had to come up with its own solutions, it tried to behave accordingly, it tried to integrate and manage in a world it had been cut from since the beginning of its existence, instead of having the comfort of choosing from ready to use replies. It failed here and there and Hank was annoyed by Connor's inability to understand certain things right away. But he just started to realize that it probably hadn't had many chances to learn how to do so.

"Sumo. His name is Sumo."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heyyy, do your dogs lick windows as well? I'm going to base Sumo's behavior on my own adorable dog, Nana. She is a Berneese Mountain Dog, so not that far from Saint Bernard and from all I've seen of Sumo, well, they are practically the same dog. (laying around, standing up only to harass their owners for pets, empty the food bowl, or assault innocent androids who just want to break into the house.)  
> Ok, I tried to post an image of her here, but I can't well, uhm. Sorry, When/if I figure it out, I will post it somewhere in the future maybe.


	13. Of Perfection and Flaws

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor had a lot of tasks piled in its processes, objectives it would have fulfilled and cleared during stasis. If only it had been given some time to sleep.
> 
>  
> 
> _'...Intervals shorter than 3 hours are considered insufficient and potentially glitch-inducing. **Extremely unadvisable.** ' ___

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I've got to warn you, this one is quite distressing for Connor, (although not nearly as much as some events in the future will be) and it get's quite strange towards the end. I had a good flow with pfilosophical dilemmas while writing it.
> 
> Oh, Hank's there as well.

Amanda had been glad again and the garden had shown its most beautiful colors to Connor. A few clouds had chased each other in the sky, but that was fine. Connor wasn't perfect yet. Amanda just treated it accordingly.

This night Connor was yanked out of its stasis again. Its HUD flashed red, complaining to Connor as if it had been its choice or fault. _Maybe it is_ , Connor thought as he saw detective Reed's face in front of it. _It is always my fault._

He requested a coffee, as usual. Connor obeyed, not w̶̪͝ant̶̻in̶̒ĝ̴ to be hit again. Detective Reed was _~~strong~~_ and his _~~hits were as well~~_. Almost as _~~strong as the ones~~_ of Todd Williams. Connor had more patches of its skin to resynthetise after the morning investigation. It didnt w̶an̷̙͐t̶ to add anything to that. It questioned neither why the detective was working during every nightshift in the precinct, why he needed so much coffee, nor why it was always Connor who had to get it for him. Questioning humans' orders was supposed to be beyond any android's grasp, just like the concept of wanting things. Connor didn't w̷͘a̴̚n̶͆̄t̸̲̉ to think about that.

Its steps were slower than usually as Connor walked towards the coffee machine, being followed by the detective. Stasis cycle hadn't even reached its deeper mode when Connor had been forced to end it. It seemed to have become a norm after just one entire week at the precinct.

Connor idly wondered what will the man do to it tonight, but the detective was seemingly in a better mood than yesterday, and the day before, as he just grabbed the cup from Connor's hand and walked away, hitting the android with his shoulder. It wasn't as bad as Connor had expected.

Returning to the recharging stations, Connor went by the holding cells. One was occupied by Todd Williams and Connor didn't spare him even a glace, no, Connor had better things to do, it had to rest, it had to fix the skin _~~broken~~_ by him, it had to _~~hide the bruises~~_ , not look at the man who made them. _~~Not look not look not look~~_. It missed the protocols.

But the next cell... Connor was stopped by intense stare of the HK400 standing in front of the glass wall. It found Connor's eyes with ease and locked so hard on them that the android had no choice but to stare back. There was so much in housekeeper's gaze, that Connor felt as if it seeped through to its own mind, reaching deep into it, like dark, thorny vines.

"They are going to destroy me..."

Connor watched the other android in silence. Its eyes pierced into it like white-hot pokers. The HK400 had done that before in the interrogation room, but now it was different... It felt like... It f̶͕̽e̶lt̸͌̔.

"It's probable..." Connor heard itself answer. "They have to analyze your biocomponents to find the cause of deviancy..."

It just stared back at the detective. Something shifted in its eyes. They were more hollow, resigned. Connor found in them emotions strictly exclusive to humans, it must have been a malfunction... But this time it wasn't sure if it was on HK's or RK's part. Connor had so many tasks in its processors unfinished, so many thoughts were crawling around its mind unrestricted that it couldn't control all of them. Some may have been corrupted.

"I'm going to die...." There was a quiver in deviant's voice. It sounded absolutely broken, drowning in despair. Connor found it strange that the android was just standing there, shivering, sobbing quietly. No shouting, no attempts to break the glass wall of its cell, no will to escape. It was all gone, replaced by resignation and debilitating fear.

"I'm sorry..." Connor said it without thinking. It wasn't part of its programming, just raw reflection that appeared out of nowhere in its mind. As soon as the words left its mouth, Connor stilled, sensing significant drop in temperature and its rise at the same time, hearing its thirium pump beat louder, a tight knot forming somewhere in its stomach, around biocomponents that could never even register sensations like that.

It wasn't a good thought. _I shouldn't have said that._ It took Connor's outer programming two seconds to catch up and punish it harshly. Connor flinched at white static that overwhelmed it for a second, rending its thoughts brutally.

The HK400 was observing it with widened eyes. Its shaking eased a little and the android shifted closer to Connor.

"I know you know something more... Can you tell me? Before they take you away?" The android detective tried, seeing that the other machine was somehow comforted by its _~~wrong~~_ and _~~horrible~~_ and _~~badbadbad sentence it shouldn't have said.~~ Maybe I can at least make something out of it._

 

Their eyes locked again. The housekeeper leaned forward, pinning Connor with its gaze, observing it with a fanatic gleam in its eyes. The other android felt its mouth dry and frowned at the sensation. Why...?

 

"You know it, right? You have it. There it is. Here." Its gaze intensified, as if it was pointing at something. Connor looked around and behind its back, to see what the HK400 wanted to show it, but housekeeper's eyes remained glued to Connor's.

 

"I don't understand..."

 

"You don't have to. You won't." It smiled, looking sick and broken, seeing the expression only made Connor's malfunctions worse. "It grows. You won't help it, it's there and you will know, when it's time. There is nothing you can do about it."

 

Connor furrowed its brows. It looked again at the other android, feeling something strange, an urge to step back. That temperature drop again. That thing with the thirium pump. "Wh-what are you talking about?"

 

The HK400 didn't answer. Its eyes became too wide and too frantic to see Connor or anything at all. The detective saw its muscles twitching and new wave of tears flowing from android's eyes, now closed in fear and misery.

 

"You will know."

 

Connor's breath hitched as the other android leaned backwards and lunged towards the glass using all its momentum and strength to hit its forehead against the bulletproof window. _I don't need to breathe_. There was a blue splash where its head connected with it, and the HK400 rose again to repeat the movement. As its head appeared above the imprint obscuring it earlier, Connor saw wide crack in its skin, thirium flowing from its forehead, marking android's face like blue tears. Loud bang shook the air again, making Connor flinch and breathe rapidly. _I don't need to breathe_. After the next hit, HK400's synthetic skin retracted from its entire forehead, soft outer shell made of plastimetal simulating mimic muscles was utterly crushed by the impact, revealing metal casing protecting android's processors. The housekeeper straightened its back again and again, bashing its head desperately against the wall.

 

Connor was unable to move. Its widened eyes fixed at the self destructing deviant, mouth slightly agape and all muscles tense. No feedback returned to its processors, no error messages were catalogued, bouncing back from a strange, milky and dense layer that enveloped Connor's mind. It knew it should do something, call for help from the officers, attempt to restrain the deviant before it damaged itself beyond repair. But it couldn't move through the static, through the cotton filling its head, quieting uncomfortably everything apart from frantic lines of code shouting at it, trashing in its skull and _~~replAyinG things it HADalready seen.~~_

 

_~~AND l̶͂͊̕ived̷̀̕.~~ _

 

Connor was barely aware of officers running towards it, of movements behind its back. The only thing that was shaking its consciousness was the loud noise each time the android hit its head, now almost split in half, with a _~~horrible~~_ crack on its _~~shattered~~_ forehead, with processor and delicate wiring visible and glowing faint red inside. The only thing Connor could see were deviant's eyes, still locked with its own, as it fell to the ground and lost that spark shining within them.

 

_~~Dead. S̸͍̪͊̾ͅha̶tte̷̝̒͝r̵̓e̶d̵̝͓̈͛͋,broken so much soHARD ontheWALLlike onthat ground that K̶̨͝IĽ̷̐LE̶̍D̴̘̟̾͌me---------~~ _

 

A palm connected with Connor's cheek, throwing its head to the side and pushing it to the ground. The android shivered there for a few seconds, still seeing the deviant's face, in spite of burying its gaze in the floor. Then, everything swayed as its hair were gripped and pulled, making it look up. Somebody was shouting in Connor's face, too close to see, to _~~loud~~_ to hear, too _~~hard pullingon m̵̫̱̄y̸̡̫͑̄̍ hair, p̸͗̃le̵a̴s̴̚͠ẻ̷̇͝STOP where is the emptiness, i̶̥̅͐͜N̴EE̵d̸̄ to be BLANKagain~~_

 

There was another slap and as Connor's head was turned by the force, it saw legs of an another officer, rushing towards them. A quick movement Connor didn't properly register and the attacker let go of its hair, making it fall to the floor again. It was somewhat better, without fingers in its hair, just lying there motionless. More sounds, more shouting, Connor couldn't make out words but it heard them clearer, knew that it was speech and indentified english language.

 

No one was hitting it, no one was pulling on its hair anymore. It lied down and as long as its eyes were fixed on the floor and not on the blue stained glass, it was fine.

 

"-gonna damage it even more! Stop, Gavin, please, it's clearly glitching out!" Connor finally picked up audio and started to decipher the words.

 

"I don't fucking care, just- Look! It fucking let that thing self-destruct! Maybe even triggered it!"

 

Connor was slowly coming back to its mind. _W-why is this happening? What is happening?_ The android ran several diagnosis scans, but all of them returned clean, apart from stress level above 90%. _It must be a malfunction, yes, I'm glitching out_. Connor blinked several times and fixated on things that soothed it. The fish. The rain. Lieutenant Anderson saying that Connor was smart. It chose not to dwell on the fact that androids didn't have the ability to be soothed. _Androids should not be affected by high stress level. There was no reason for it to rise as well._

 

Connor realized that for the last few minutes it was completely motionless and stopped breathing, laying still on the floor. It opened its eyes again and looked around resuming all cosmetic processes. Detective Reed was gone, several officers were inside the cell _~~stainedblue~~_ and above Connor, there was officer Chris Miller, watching it cagily. He must have been the one who stopped the detective from hitting Connor again.

 

"Officer Miller." The man jumped, startled by Connor's sudden speaking.

 

"Jesus... What the hell happened? Am I supposed to call CyberLife? Are you... What's wrong with you?" His eyes looked concerned, but there was frustration behind his gaze. Connor felt negative feedback again. It should not have annoyed anyone, it should not have broken, it should not have let the deviant self-destruct. _It's my fault._

 

"I seem to have encountered problems of unknown nature. I will report the bug in my programming immediately and run an extensive diagnosis as soon as I resume stasis. I'm sorry for the inconvenience and unfortunate events that occurred as a result." Connor said, carefully keeping its voice even and balanced. Breathing. It was important to the integration. _I don't need to breathe_. Connor had to integrate well. "I believe there is no immediate need to inform CyberLife about that. Filling a report in that regard, however might prove to be beneficial."

 

Officer Miller nodded, uncertainty still lingering on his face, his eyes never leaving Connor. Another officer appeared beside him. "What's up with that thing?" He asked, gesturing towards the cell.

 

"Broken. It self-destructed, and we're trying to get the footage from security cameras to see what the hell happened. It was fine the whole day, I don't know what the hell..."

 

"That won't be necessary. I can provide footage of my own, in much better quality than the one from security cameras." Connor said, standing up. "The deviant started talking to me when I was passing by its cell. I witnessed it's self-destruction, yet I'm unable to determine what actually caused it. I can-"

 

"Hey, you shut up. I'm not gonna let you move until someone gets me a copy of RK's users' guide. I want to consult this glitching, we can't take any chances with a prototype like you."

 

And so Connor stayed there, waiting for the humans to find what they wanted in the document, answering questions, sending its footage to various devices for the officers to review...

 

...Staring at a blue stain and drops of thirium slowly dripping from it to the floor. Seeing white walls and bright lights despite the dim ambience in the precinct. Hearing voices.

 

_~~' "Test over. Forehead plate gave up after applying pressure of 617,61 pounds to its center. Processor remains... uh, design flaw detected. Shutdown in three seconds. Notes for the design te-"~~ _

 

 _~~-Ṋ̷̙̤̭̊̉ͅo̴̿th̶̫̥̾̏i̶͋̉̓̾͑͝ņ̷͇͕̟̝̜́̍̈́͝g.'~~_

* * *

Lieutenant Anderson appeared earlier than usually, presumably due to repeated phone calls performed by captain Fowler. Connor still hadn't been allowed to rest, but it had gathered that it would have been impossible anyway because of the commotion involved in dealing with the destroyed deviant. The android was in dire need of stasis, but couldn't disobey such a direct command, especially when the captain had reinstated it himself. Unable to clear its neural activity cache and recharge, Connor had settled on compensating sluggish movements by extensive calibrations. Its owner found it near the cell, playing with the quarter minted in 1994.

 

"What the fuck happened? Why the hell was my fucking ass dragged out of my warm bed in the middle of the night by that prick?!" The lieutenant was in a very poor mood, his eyes narrowed in frustration, sleepiness still lingering on his face. His unkempt silver mane was all over his head and Connor deduced that its contact with a comb this morning had been even more limited than usually.

 

"I would like to point out that, in fact, it is 7:55 in the morning and your shift starts in five minutes, so you are not early but on time, lieutenant." Connor smiled, hoping to elevate the man's mood by bringing his attention to a task well done on his part. The investigation would undoubtedly have benefited from the punctuality becoming a habit for its owner. Though Connor estimated that such an outcome of this situation was highly unlikely.

 

But the man just shot the android a hostile glare. "You fucking smartass, no one asked you to bitch about my habits. I want to know what the fuck did you do to this thing that it self-destructed? I thought you wanted to keep it alive for those nerds of yours to make a vivisection?"

 

Connor bit its lip, searching for words. What could it possibly say? The android wasn't even sure what had happened itself. "I can show you the footage, though I still struggle to make sense of that particular event. The deviant had been rambling before it began to damage itself and I suppose that perhaps self-destruction was just an effect of its warped program paths affected by deviancy? I certainly didn't do anything to raise its stress level, furthermore I gather it's safe to assume that it was already permanently elevated due to the situation the deviant was in."

 

Lieutenant Anderson huffed in response and demanded to see the footage. Connor handed him one of the digital tablets it had send its memories to and waited for the man to review them. His eyebrows went closer and closer to each other and when he reached the moment in which Connor had said 'I'm sorry', he paused the recording and looked at the android.

 

"What is that static? That was when you started glitching?"

 

"No. It was a reminder from my AI's restrains not to utilize lines produced by my core personality simulation's matrix instead of the responses provided by my social protocols. Sometimes I have to improvise, but that particular situation did not call for such measures. I shouldn't have attempted to establish any bond with the deviant. It was wrong." Connor said quietly, observing the image. Part of the punishment it had received was visible as brief desaturation of the footage and artifacting in the corners of the visual output as a result of the power surge used to mark undesired behavior, but it was nowhere near what Connor had experienced.

 

"Uh, so they... shock you sometimes, when you say something on your own? And they did it when you said you were sorry that the deviant was going to be destroyed?" Lieutenant's eyes were wary, but there was something akin to concern in them too, when the android nodded. Connor performed two more scans, not believing in their accuracy. That couldn't have been true, its owner was sometimes hard to read and logic stated that he just didn't care for Connor. It wasn't surprising that the impression vanished from his face the next second. He resumed watching the recording.

 

"Why didn't you stop it from self-destructing? What is happening here? This looks different than the... punishment from earlier. And, wait, is that Gavin?"

 

"Yes, detective Reed attempted to stop me from glitching. It was... I'm not sure what, I believe it might have been a bug in my programming, rendering me unable to act. I regret that tremendously." There was a slight distortion in the visual footage, movements of the deviant bashing its head against the glass and the officers rushing to stop it were blurred and fuzzy. No audio had been useful beyond that point, replaced by oddly distant shouts and noises, overlaid heavily by too loud and fast beating of Connor's thirium pump. But the memories Connor had heard and seen weren't there. Neither was what it had fe̸̎lt̵.

 

Connor bit its lip again and reached for its coin, rolling it across its knuckles quietly. It would p̷̪̕r̴̟̞̈́e̵fe̴͒r̵ if the officers just used the memories to determine the cause of HK400's destruction and stopped watching as soon as Connor's glitching began. But it didn't question their choices, a functional android shouldn't have been bothered by that.

 

"Uh, all right. I'm... Um, so what now? Do I fill a complaint or is there a procedure to return damaged or faulty goods to CyberLife, or what? Should I get you fixed?" The lieutenant was wary, but he struggled with the idea visibly. Connor didn't know how to interpret the uncomfortable body language he was using.

 

"There is no need for such actions. Although that bug was undoubtedly worrying and shall not be ignored, I believe that an extended period of stasis could solve the majority of problems regarding my software. An extended report I'm obliged to send to CyberLife on Sunday shall provide them with enough information to determine the cause and eradicate it."

 

The lieutenant pressed his lips into a thin line and tried to say something, but before he could draw a sound, captain Fowler approached him.

 

"Anderson. I need to talk to you. Now." He turned around when Connor started to follow them into his glass office in the middle of the hall and narrowed his eyes, looking at the android. "Without that thing."

 

Connor stopped where it was, glancing anxiously at its owner. The android had been somehow comforted by the fact that the lieutenant, despite his initial irritation about being forced to get to work on time, hadn't expressed any significant displeasure with Connor. It was perfectly aware of the fact that because of the imperfections in its code, a valuable asset to CyberLife had been lost, but hoped that the officers wouldn't get too angry at it and at least the integration part of its mission wouldn't be negatively affected.

 

But the captain, unlike lieutenant Anderson, seemed to be dissatisfied with Connor. The android felt that spike in its chest again, but this time it was a little different, more bitter and dull than the last time. Connor felt hot and had to resist an urge to cower down. It hadn't planned to malfunction, but it had done that regardless and as a result, everyone's day was worse, CyberLife had lost a functional deviant and captain Fowler was angry. Connor let its head hang low.

 

It observed the interaction between its owner and the captain from outside of the office. Connor was glad that the walls were glass, but wished it had been ordered to stop a bit closer to them. It was positioned wrong and too far away to engage a program allowing it to read from the lip movement, but the android wan̷̙̋t̵͘ed to know what they were discussing. Judging from captain's gestures towards it and its owner's glances, they were talking, or rather arguing, about Connor.

 

The android took out its coin and rolled it across its fingers absentmindedly again. The movement dragged its thoughts away from the situation. Just as it was moving to the next trick, a report flashed in its HUD in bright blue.

 

A deviant! A rouge AX400 with a small girl had been seen downtown, near the end of the 53 bus line. Connor quickly accessed the internet and consulted public transport map with the Detroit's topography and determined that the line matched one of the busses passing by Todd Williams' house. The coincidence was too perfect: it must have been the deviant from yesterday. Connor felt sudden surge of determination encoded within the base of its programming just for situations like that. It had scented its prey.

 

Connor chose to disobey the order even though it meant further damage to its software and moved. Standing right outside the glass door to captain Fowler's office, the android buried its expectant gaze in lieutenant Anderson, aiming to attract his attention and inform him about the report. The captain noticed its strange behavior and furrowed his brows, but before he said anything, his own terminal seemingly signaled the report as well. He glanced at the monitor and cut the argument short, sending the lieutenant away to investigate the lead before it gets cold.

 

Connor started walking towards the exit as soon as its owner opened the door. "I can debrief you in the car, lieutenant. The report just came in, probability of it depicting the deviant AX400 from yesterday is around 89%. We have to hurry, it has been spotted last night, but it can still be there."

 

"Jesus, Connor, let me catch a breath!" The lieutenant grumbled, but rushed after the android quickly, probably not wanting to hinder the chances of saving the child. Connor had different priorities, but didn't complain, as long as the man was cooperating. 

* * *

"If you don't mind me asking... What were you and captain Fowler discussing in the office?" The android spoke quietly, as they drove towards Camden, where the deviant had been seen. Connor risked a lot with that question, but it just had to know. If its performance was not satisfactory, if it was failing badly, CyberLife would have had to make alterations to it and Connor ṕ̵ͅre̴̅f̶erred to know it that had been the case. It wasn't wary of the company, or of technicians, ( _of course not, only a deviant would be_ ) but having to undergo such procedures would have meant that Connor was a failure, that it had failed the engineers who had made it, the programmers who had written its code, CyberLife itself.

 

And Amanda. It would have meant that Connor failed Amanda, despite her wisdom, despite the advices she had been giving it, despite her guidance. I would have meant her disappointment.

 

Lieutenant Anderson eyed it briefly, wearing an expression too complicated for Connor to identify. The android had found out some time ago that even most advanced social protocols and facial recognition algorithms it possessed didn't guarantee successful and comprehensive scans. Its owner often expressed conflicting emotions and Connor had difficulty understanding what he felt almost all the time.

 

"Actually, I think that Fowler ordered you to stay away for a reason." His voice was gruff, as usual, but there was an edge to it, which told Connor that the lieutenant didn't really agree with his superior.

 

"I understand. But... I just wanted to ask... Was he angry at me? I know I shouldn't have done that, b-but I didn't want to glitch, it just... I'm sorry. I won't let it happen again. Will you tell him that next time you speak with him?"

 

There was a deep sigh from the lieutenant followed by a long period of silence. Connor didn't interrupt, hoping that its owner would accept its plea and try to appease captain Fowler a little. They were friends, he would certainly have listened to the lieutenant. But then again, its owner hated it... there was no reason for him to indulge a machine.

 

"Did you plan to glitch out in that moment?"

 

The question surprised Connor. It glanced at the man, but his eyes were on the road. "Of course not, I... I didn't want that, I wanted that to stop, I wanted to call somebody, but... I just... couldn't."

 

"You say it was a bug in your software. And as far as I'm concerned, you can't rewrite yourself all that much, am I correct?"

 

"Yes...I think it was triggered by bugged memory replay, I have no control over that particular program..."

 

"Then I think it's safe to say that it wasn't your fault. Someone has fucked up your code and its CyberLife who leased us a broken product."

 

Connor wasn't comforted by that. Not at all. "You think I'm broken?" It almost flinched at how small and quiet its voice was. There was nothing wrong with its voice box, and Connor wasn't running any simulations that could affect it, so why did it sound so pathetic?

 

The lieutenant needed a few seconds to answer, again. "...No. I didn't mean that. I just... Fuck." He sighed and looked at Connor with irritation. "Why do I feel bad about messing up conversation with a fucking machine?"

 

Connor cowered bowing its head. Failure again, it just couldn't stop annoying everyone around it. _Maybe detective Reed is right. Maybe I really am useless..._ "I'm sorry-"

 

"Don't fucking apologize. It's not your fault either. And stop running that sad-puppy-eyes.exe. Look at me."

 

Connor did as instructed and saw that the irritation in its owner's face was gone. "I just tried to say that... yeah, you're a bit flawed, but you're a prototype, right? You are entitled to it. I think that no one should be angry at you for shit like that."

 

The android bit its lip and run its fingers across the coin clutched in its grasp. It briefly thought again about how grateful it was that they had given it the same coin Connor - 51 had with it in the elevator. "I shouldn't be imperfect. The developers have decided that I am ready for field tests, which means that all my flaws should have been eliminated. I'm just failing and damaging CyberLife's reputation now."

 

The man huffed with laughter. "Believe me, kid, they are damaging their reputation pretty well on their own, you don't really add that much to it. Besides, humans make mistakes Connor. Even those who have created you. You can't be responsible for their fuckups."

 

A long silence disturbed only by quiet tapping of rain hitting car's windows and labored noise of the engine enveloped them both as Connor pondered weight of its owner's words. They seemed reasonable, but went against dogmas preprogrammed into it.

 

"It's interesting."

 

"What now?" Lieutenant Anderson seemed a bit tired, but this time he made sure to hide that well, his voice was much softer than usually when he wore that particular micro expression. Connor made a mental note not to ask any unnecessary questions for the next few hours, but it wanted to finish that conversation. Its owner knew a lot about life and when he was explaining various situations to Connor, it was much easier for the android to make sense of them and get to know how to fit in. It cherished the opportunity to learn something from the man.

 

"Perfection of one's creator seems to be a frequent motive in various human religions, appearing on all continents and across most cultures. Humans seem to believe most often to have been created in the image of their god, or gods and almost all of those religions agree that their idols are flawless and ever-knowing. Why would such an entity create flawed, weaker, lesser thing in comparison to them? If they are almighty, they should be capable of conceiving beings just as perfect as they are."

 

Lieutenant looked genuinely astonished and completely taken aback. He opened his mouth and closed it, scrutinizing the android, regarding it as if he had been seeing it for the first time. "Jesus, Connor, where did that come from? You got some fucking theological programs in there?"

 

"No. I was pondering your answers to my previous questions and found hard to ignore similarities between legends revolving around the creation of humans and my own development. Your species has built my body and conceived my mind, so technically, I am a human and you are a god in that scenario. Do you think that flawless entities could be blamed for flaws of their creations? Or do humans blame themselves for their weaknesses and strive to be better in the eyes of their creators, attributing their failures to their own wrong choices and submission to dark forces?"

 

"I am no priest and hell, I don't think I'm the best person to talk about those things... For fuck's sake, I don't even know if I should be discussing such topics with an AI, but... If you really need an answer, I would pick the second option. Still, Connor, you're missing something very important here. No human is perfect: not me, not Fowler, not the fucking pope, not even your CyberLife. They are creating amazing things, sophisticated as hell and smart as fuck, but they make mistakes. Get used to it, no human will ever be a god."

 

"As a human creation, I've been taught that the ones who had given my existence to me will always be superior to androids. But you pointed out some flaws entailed in that thinking. It doesn't make sense."

 

The lieutenant seemed unsettled by Connor's statement. He pressed his lips into a thin line and thought hard on his answer, shooting a few concerned glances at the android. A wide variety of emotions passed through his face, leaving Connor baffled, unable to read him. He finally said "It never does. We are irrational and fucked up... And as for the reasons of creating lesser beings, maybe they were afraid? Of their own creations rising up against them, wiping them off? Maybe they feared the consequences of creating entities as perfect and unstoppable as themselves?"

 

"To fear is to be flawed. Perfect beings should not need to fear anything."

 

Lieutenant Anderson snorted with laughter quietly. "There you go, another evidence that humans are as imperfect as they can be. We are weak and we are afraid of a lot of things, we make terrible choices and hurt each other as a result. Tell me now, smartass, what do you think about your flaws? Are you succumbing to dark forces? Do you have a devil whispering to your ear? What are your bugs if not just mistakes of your creators, things beyond your control? What is the android equivalent for the worst deadly sin?"

 

Connor had known the answer to that question even before it had been asked. Even before coming online. It was the very basis of its programming, the first thing it had been taught, the most rehearsed lesson. A knowledge it would never have forgotten or disputed.

 

"Deviancy."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >HK400: You're going deviant  
> >Con: I have no idea what you're talking about  
> >Con: *proceeds to feel several different things in mere minutes after the conversation and gets a panic attack because he's totally not a deviant*  
> >Con: Still no idea.


	14. Fissures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There was a way for Connor to redeem itself.  
> And it planned to take every chance with it.
> 
> Failure was not an option.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Ok, so first of all, I'm sorry for all the misspells in the last chapter's notes and in the chapter itself, it was just before one of my exams and I actually post every chapter around 3 pm according to middle european time zone and I am, well... sleep deprived. I've corrected some of them and am going to try to root them out completely, but at the same time I hope it wasn't too distracting.
> 
> Now I finally have my holidays and it will hopefully be better XD.  
> EDIT. I meant 'am' not 'pm' sorry xddd "w nocy" goddamit!

When they arrived on the scene, it was raining. The deviant had been seen in a quiet district of Detroit, far from the city center. Skyscrapers Connor was used to were distant, springing from the ground like gigantic cliffs or crooked teeth. Their tips vanished in grey, milky clouds enveloping the sky over the city. The investigation from yesterday had taken place in a district too distant from the city center to allow to see its outline against the horizon and so, it was a completely new experience for the android. Connor tilted its head, analyzing the view. Almost every day, it was presented with something it had never seen or heard before. It was n̸̒̂i̵cē̷̛.

Connor left lieutenant Anderson's car and followed him around, to get updates of the situation from one of the officers already present on the scene, to whom the lieutenant referred as Wilson. The man had known Connor's owner, but it was his first encounter with the android, and he was glancing at it from time to time, never having a chance to examine the prototype from up close before. Curiosity was fighting with repulsion for dominance on his face and Connor was sure he didn't like that mixture, but still smiled and introduced itself politely. The thought of liking something or not was ridiculous anyway.

"As you probably know from the report, the employee of a local groceries store called this morning, after reviewing some security footage. Last night, he encountered an AX400, who approached him and asked for money. He reported that the android had a small child beside it, a girl, approximately eight or nine. It turns out that the thing had stolen some food, but he hadn't noticed that until he watched the recordings." The officer gestured broadly at the area surrounding them. Connor saw the store in question at the end of the street. There were some run down establishments around it, a laundry, a cheap motel and a few other stores, though a lot of the seemed closed indefinitely or undergoing some renovations. Connor accessed local network and catalogued all the places that had been open during the night.

It waited for the officer to stop talking and asked "Have you tried to question people who were working in the vicinity at that time? Maybe the deviant visited other stores looking for a place to stay the night? If it was alone, it could go into stasis wherever it pleased, but the girl would have to be provided a warm and comfortable place to rest, if the android planned to keep her in good health. Maybe they visited the motel?"

The officer looked at Connor in astonishment. "Wow, the fuck? Is it allowed to speak unprompted?"

Lieutenant Anderson sighted "Unfortunately. But surprisingly so, it has good ideas sometimes. Did you speak with the owner? The android may be right after all."

Wilson glanced at Connor with sarcastic amusement and handed Hank a tablet. "Well, yeah, CyberLife's new toy can perform basic investigation routines a few decades old. Impressive indeed. Here's the footage from CCTV cameras that caught a glimpse of the deviant. We already checked the motel, but there is a no-androids policy there, so it didn't enter, but appeared at the recording from the area in front of the entrance."

"It would never be able to come across as a human in its uniform. If it went there, the deviant likely planned to stay the night in the establishment, but needed sufficient clothes to disguise itself as a human. What about the laundry?" Connor said, watching the footage over its owner's shoulder, craning its neck to see. As soon as the lieutenant noticed it, he extended his hand so that the android could look at the device more easily. Officer Wilson snorted with laughter at the sight.

"Oh, it really is smart, isn't it? What are you gonna do with it, Hank?"

Connor didn't even bothered to analyze a long glance the lieutenant shot Wilson. "Do you have anything else to show me?"

The officer swiped across the screen of the device and brought up another file. The video footage depicted a bright interior filled with numerous washing machines and a few chairs for clients to sit on in the middle of the room. A man was sprawled over one of them, asleep, and next to him, one of the devices was signalizing with a green light that the wash and dry cycle had been completed.

Connor narrowed its eyes, when it saw an AX400 with a short brown ponytail and in a uniform dotted with its own thirium enter the building. There was a small girl following it around, holding its hand.

Unfortunately, low quality of the footage made it impossible for Connor to scan the deviant and determine with 100% certainty whether it was in fact Todd Williams' possession, but the description and evidence Connor had gathered so far fitted perfectly. The only thing that didn't quite fall into place was the fact, that the girl seemed to follow the android willingly without any coercion or intimidation...

The deviant kneeled in front of the girl and urged her to sit in the corner, while it proceeded to examine the washing machine. The AX400 began to open it, having made sure that the man the clothes belonged to was well asleep, but... it stopped when the girl raised from her seat and approached it. Connor expected it to force the child to be silent or use some kind of leverage to control the hostage and keep her from waking the man up and getting help, but the deviant seemed to be having a conversation with her. The android detective tilted its head, seeing that the machine nodded after a few seconds and moved to the exit, taking gently the girl's hand again. The laundry remained untouched.

"It didn't steal the clothes? Why?" Connor's owner drew similar conclusions to its own. "So the motel is out of the question. Unless it got an attire from somewhere else."

"Unlikely. Obtaining old and dirty clothes from an another, less trustworthy place wouldn't help it that much, motels don't open to people looking like they can't afford to rent the room. And it would also be unexpected for the deviant to possess money to pay in advance. There are a few ruined houses in the vicinity. Places that could provide good and inconspicuous hiding spots for a deviant, as well as a windshield and a roof over child's head. Perhaps we could investigate them?" Connor urged the lieutenant with its gaze. "Without a proper attire, it is unlikely to have found an accommodation with humans, and it may still be hiding there."

The lieutenant sighed and thanked Wilson for the briefing, turning to Connor. "Sorry to burst your bubble, kid, but don't get your hopes too high. If it was seen yesterday, there isn't much chance of it still being around. I know that deviants are stupid as fuck and they prefer to hide in the attic than run, but this one got that covered the day before."

Connor didn't say anything, preferring to focus on the investigation. If the deviant had been caught, CyberLife could analyze it in place of the one that self-destructed tonight. It still wasn't ideal, the company would have one instead of two specimens, but maybe the humans would be less angry at Connor for glitching and allowing the HK400 to shut itself down. Connor could redeem its mistake from earlier. _Because it still is my fault, no matter what the lieutenant says and how... compelling it sounds. I failed them. Now it's my chance to fix it._ It didn't matter that the probability of success was around 33%.

Connor scanned the ground in search for traces of thirium, hoping that the damage the AX400 had sustained would be sufficient to cause it to bleed long enough to provide a track, but was met with nothing. Its gaze darted around, looking for something, anything. The lieutenant followed the android with his lips pressed tightly together.

"Connor, are you su-"

"There! A cut fence. And a drop of thirium, the deviant must have cut itself whi-" The android froze, realizing what it had just done. "Umm, sorry for interrupting you. I shouldn't have done that, I just found a-"

"It's all right, Connor, just investigate. Saving the child is all that matters."

Connor nodded and ducked under the fence, trying not to think about how its previous mission involving the exact same objectives had ended.

The lieutenant didn't follow it to the backyard of a ruined detached house, staying outside the fence after muttering something about being too old to crawl in the mud and leaving it up to Connor. The building was perched on the corner of the street between some other run-down houses and establishments. A large billboard hovered over Connor's head, as it moved around the house, looking for a point of entry. The android stepped silently, keeping close to the walls and staying wary of covered, glassless windows. It activated its infrared vision to detect different temperatures and be able to momentarily distinguish an android from a human, reveal possible hiding places using a telltale heat traces. Connor peeked through a small chink between wooden boards covering the window. A blurry figure, and android, Connor deduced instantly, definitely too cool to be a human, appeared in the center of the room, motionless.

Connor saw the eyes of the android dart towards it and figured that the deviant somehow knew about Connor's presence. It wasn't surprising, considering how notorious the police was on the street, with all their vehicles flashing colorful lights and walkie-talkies chattering in frequencies androids other than Connor and the rest of police equipment couldn't really hear, but undoubtedly were able to sense. The detective rose and swiftly moved to the door, trying to ignore how hard it was to maintain the efficiency of its movements with such a low charge. The entrance was closed and blocked with a wooden crate behind them, but this makeshift barricade was no match for RK800's strength.

The android inside flinched as Connor threw the door open with a few strong pushes and wasted no time scanning the machine. It was a WR600, serial #021 753 034, assigned to Detroit's public android fleet, a gardening model meant for maintaining parks. Connor tilted its head, closing the door and focusing on the other android after scanning the place briefly. Detective's eyes were narrowed determinately, cold, analytical. The WR600 was clearly a deviant, and Connor had no doubts what had made it that way. Left part of its face was almost completely shredded, three wide gashes marred its forehead and cheek, stretching from the hairline to android's brow and lips. The area around them was cracked and melted, as a result of great heat, blonde hair near the damage disappeared in ugly patches. The cuts were deep enough to reveal metal endoskeleton and indigo wiring space in between the bones that protected the cables. Its left eye was cracked and thirium gathered between the layers of its white, tinting it blue and making its iris loose human-like features.

"I am looking for an AX400 and a small child it kidnapped. Have you seen them?"

The android shifted uncomfortably, but its face didn't change from forced blankness, tinted with fear and stress. One hazel brown and one silvery metallic eye were fixed on a point behind Connor's back as it approached the WR600. "Ralph's seen nobody. Just Ralph here."

The deviant's stress level jumped up to 40% when Connor asked the question and continued to climb as the android observed Connor scrutinize the place. Thermal scans should have allowed the detective to reveal presence or possible hiding spots if any part of the body, either human or android hadn't been obscured by a material covering heat signature, but Connor didn't find anything at the first glance. A staircase to its right could lead to abundant hiding places in the second floor, but going there would leave the main entrance open to an escape, should the deviants have been downstairs. There was a door in the far corner of the room, near a mantel piece that glowed with heat in Connor's vision. A fire had been enkindled there and had died approximately five hours ago. The android detective raised its eyes to the WR600 and narrowed them dangerously, making its stress go over 50%. Androids didn't need heat, having a place obstructed from direct wind and moderately warm clothes to cover themselves ensured that they wouldn't have taken any damage from the cold, unless the night had been unusually freezing. The last night hadn't been. And the deviant had a large piece of tarpaulin draped over its shoulders, not exactly clothing, but it was undoubtedly protecting it from the cold a bit.

"You have to tell me. The girl is in danger."

The other android remained silent, twitching nervously. Its face was still twisted in determination, overlaid by an artificial mask of indifference. Connor felt a sudden spark of curiosity. The android was so far deviant that it had difficulty posing as a machine, simulated emotions spilling through its fissured facade. Connor wondered if it would have been able to read lieutenant Anderson more accurately.

The detective swept its glance around the room again and this time, it stopped on the dining table. Three chairs stood beside it, next to cracked and dirty plates set up as if waiting for a breakfast to happen. The middle of the table was occupied by a burned possum with a large kitchen knife embedded into it. One of the chairs was on the floor as if it had fallen, when somebody had stood up abruptly.

Connor eyed the WR600 again. Three plates. Food (well, not strictly but something... consumable), and most androids weren't even able to ingest anything apart from thirium. Heat. The android standing still, nervous and answering its questions too quickly.

_Fine. You don't have to talk. I will find them myself._

The detective fixated on the deviant's stress level. Faulty androids were unpredictable and their emotions caused them to be afraid and unusually afflicted by things that wouldn't exert any effect on a functional android, but Connor could use that to its advantage. It wandered across the room, examining possible hiding places, watching the gardener. It got more nervous when Connor returned to the staircase. The android narrowed its eyes observing the deviant, almost scowling. _I will not fail. Not this time._

Connor saw in its peripheral a movement so minute that it would surely have escaped a human, or even an another model but it wasn't lost to an RK800. Its head snapped to the side and Connor almost leaped towards cardboard boxes piled under the stairs.

There was a quiet sound behind Connor, so faint that it was almost lost in the ambience, but it set the android on the edge, and luckily so, because if it hadn't been for this small noise, it wouldn't have been able to react. Just as it was about to extend its hand and move them aside to scan whatever was hiding there, its proximity sensors blared with a warning.

Fast, but still significantly slower than in calibration tests, still a lot more sluggish than it should have, Connor dodged to the side, hearing the knife previously buried in the possum cut the air mere inches from its ear. The next attack came immediately after, the deviant with a mixture of anger and desperation launched itself at Connor again, managing to tear lapel of its jacked with the blade this time. It still didn't even graze the android, but the mere fact that a gardening unit was able to strike this close to its body meant that Connor's reactions and reflexes were significantly affected by stasis deprivation and low charge. The deviant-hunter distantly felt a knot forming in its stomach again, the same malfunction that took its breath away at the precinct this night, the same one that made it let the HK400 to critically damage itself. _No, no nonononono, not this time._

"Kara, quick! Run!" The WR600 shouted and Connor saw two figures raise from behind the boxes, darting towards the door as fast as possible. It dedicated a precious second to scan them, the lag in its processes that wouldn't have occurred if it had been functioning at 100% capacity caused it to lose track of the deviant's position for a moment, and then Connor's processors froze, trying to make sense of what the scans yielded...

The blow to the side of the head Connor had received was strong, but it thankfully was blunt force instead of the knife. The android crumbled to the floor, but collecting itself as soon as a state-of-the-art prototype should have, it used the momentum to grab the deviant and throw it off balance. Then, Connor rolled to its feet, to quick to allow the android to hit it again. The deviant-hunter reached for the knife, clutching the WR600's wrist and moving behind it to apply a grip and twist the blade out of the android's hand. The attacker struggled in Connor's hold, the hunter heard crack of the plastic and the deviant shout in anguish as it pressed harder to disarm the opponent. Connor had no time to be gentle.

As soon as the knife was out of WR600's hold, Connor kicked it in the head, hoping that it would be enough to render it unconscious or damage it enough to prevent it from running away. Darting outside, it looked frantically around in search of its prey. Lieutenant Anderson caught up to Connor, having finally opened the gate and gotten access to the yard.

"Connor, wh-"

"There is a deviant inside, the AX run away, I've got to catch it, where did it go?!"

Lieutenant furrowed his brows in confusion, clearly having no idea what was happening around him, and opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, officer Wilson pointed towards the end of the street. "They went that way!"

Connor wasted no time looking for a gate and simply jumped the fence without much trouble. It landed softly, using its momentum to roll and dash into a sprint as soon as it had ground under its feet again. A muttered "holy shi..." chased the android as it ran as fast as it could, pushing people aside and cutting corners, paying no mind to how slick the pavement was.

An officer, who had just been passed by the escaping pair quickly got the idea and pointed Connor in the direction they went. The android didn't stop for the briefest moment, completely ignoring the man, who shouted something to it. Only the mission mattered right now. Connor would _not_ fail.

In the narrow alley, the android jumped over an upturned bin, thrown to the ground by the deviant and at the end, it finally saw its targets. They were vaulting over a net fence, the AX400, now dressed in a baggy, brown human jacket and with its hair white and trimmed short, helping the little fugitive down to the ground. Connor darted towards them, but they were already on the other side, and it grabbed uselessly on the wire, scowling at the deviant. The eyes of the androids locked for a heartbeat, frightened, icy blue versus warm brown, now darkened and focused like eyes of a predator. The deviant tore its glance away from Connor and gripping the girl tightly, it ran down the slope in a cascade of mud and pebbles, towards a broad and busy highway.

Connor jumped up and gripped the fence, pushing itself up, but suddenly felt a strong grip on its ankle.

"Wh-Wait... Don't you fucking... DARE to get on that road!" Lieutenant Anderson managed to shout between labored pants, fighting for his breath like a champ. His face was so twisted in anger that Connor's chasing haze was pierced by its other programmed responses and an apology started to form at the tip of its tongue. The android's eyes widened, as it froze for a moment, confused by contradicting guidelines and ambivalent stimuli.

"I have to! The devia-"

"I said, get BACK HERE." He pulled strongly on Connors leg, making it loose its grip and fall back to the ground. Connor quickly got a hold of the barrier again but was stopped by a heavy hand clasping around the back of its collar. "You're gonna drive them under a truck, you fucking lunatic! The child i-"

"It's not a child! It's an android, an YK500, I scanned both of them in the house!" Connor shouted and the lieutenant's eyes widened in utter surprise, his features shifting rapidly from anger and determination to a complete shock. Connor felt his hand loosening around its neck and used this opportunity to twist away from the man's grasp, climbing on the fence as fast as it could.

"Connor, NO! I fucking gave you an order, LISTEN TO ME FOR ONCE!" The android felt an iron grip on its leg again, but locked its hands on the net securely, refusing to get down. 

_IwillnotfailIwillnotfaiIwillnotfailIIcan'tfail._

"You're gonna get killed, I'm not fucking scraping pieces of your stupid skull off the road!"

And at those words, Connor suddenly tensed, feeling that knot again. _'You're gonna get killed'._

Connor wasn't afraid of death, not really, it had already died fifty one times, death wasn't that... bad. Death itself wasn't. No. Fifty one times, it was a lot and Connor got used it. Besides, it couldn't be afraid anyway. _And I'm not. Death is fine._

What wasn't fine, was being _shattered, ~~destroyed, pieces of skull being scrapped off the road~~_ weren't fine. _Being ~~k̷il̵l̵̽e̵̛̳d̶̖̑, mangled by the force~~ , damaged ~~b̷͚̂ey̷o̴nd̷͑ repair~~ , hit into, ~~ran over, crushed into an u̶̠̍nre̴͖̔s̸̍p̵onṡ̴i̵ve piece of plastic stillABle to KEEPitconscious for AGonising minutes WASNTfine. ITWASNtitwasnTitw̵̪͂a̴̮͒ș̷̌n̵͉͗t̵̛̪̟̐͛t̵̬̅̂̓̆̕t̸̬͌̾̓͑ṯ̶̉̊t̴̪͉͙̒̀̊̈̄ͅt̷̝̪̓̐͐t̶͍̣̝̩̞͌̃͊t̷̥͌̊͝t̶͈̩̼̥̽̒̿͛̚ͅ.~~_

Connor realized it'd been staring at the highway, at the cars and trucks speeding beside them with loud noises that made it want to flinch each time they hit its audio receptors. At its preconstructions it hadn't even been aware it had started performing. At its own outlines dashing across the highway, and then being hit by the vehicles, scattered around like glass vases shattered by bullets. It was surprising how far from Connor's body would its thirium have fallen.

It caught a glimpse of the deviants again. The AX400 was trembling a bit, clutching the little android to herself protectively, as if its body would have been enough to keep the child model safe from the impact should they have been struck. It threw the girl suddenly to the other side of the line, making it cross the road in a brief gap between two cars and then followed. They successfully reached the greenbelt in the middle of the highway.

Connor felt a sudden urge to push itself up and chase after them, but remained glued in place, feeling as if its joints locked, muscles unwilling to budge. But it was Connor itself, who was unwilling to budge. Chances of catching at least one of the deviants were at 60%. Chances of Connor being destroyed were around 40%. The knot in its stomach, now accompanied by the sharp needle in its chest were all it could think about.

Suddenly aware it hadn't been breathing the whole time, Connor made its stuttering muscles move. The iron grip on its leg was still there, but as soon as Connor fell unresponsive, it stopped being so insistent and loosened a bit. Connor used it as a guide to ease itself back to the ground, not looking away from the highway and the vehicles that would have _s̸͖̑hat̴t̷͗er̴e̵d̵͋_ it, if it had followed its mission and stepped on the road. Slowly, almost too slow to notice, like an animal not wanting to be seen, Connor went down the fence, moving as little as possible.

It carefully tore white hands with the skin retracted from the force of its desperate grip away from the net and resumed breathing, taking a few failed, too shallow and shaky gulps of air into its lungs. Somebody was speaking to it, but Connor couldn't hear anything through its own thirium pump's beating and white static, nothing mattered but the current flowing though its wires and punishing it for the disobedience. Or obedience. Connor didn't know.

There was a face in front of it, but Connor had difficulty focusing its eyes, seeing only a dark outline on a pale grey background and blurry movements too fast for it to catch up. It wanted to frown at the revelation: an advanced prototype should be faster than anything capable of having a shape of a human. But its mimic muscles were sluggish and unresponsive, its cheeks felt hot, but a ticklish sensation on Connor's face pulled it closer to reality: water. Cold drops against its skin, falling from above. _...Cold?_

Connor felt a hand being placed gently on its shoulder. It caught onto that sensation like to an anchor and focused on returning to the current moment, trying to leave warnings about software instability screaming at it behind. The static still lingered in the corners of its vision and so did the burning sensation in its servos and wires, but that was to be expected, that was fine. Connor did bad. _I deserve to be punished._

_A face. Focus on the face. What is wrong with me?_

"...there you go. You're with me, you little plastic shit? Breathe. Or not... do you even need to? Whatever, just... Fucking hell. Connor, are you all right? I swear, if you had gotten there and somehow survived, I would have broken you myself for putting yourse... Fuck, okay, are you with me? What the fuck was that? Connor?" The person in front of it turned out to be lieutenant Anderson. Its owner. It was a bit worrying that Connor couldn't recognize him mere second ago, and that all it could say about him was that he had a shape of a human. The fact that it was laying in the mud on its back and staring in the sky, not remembering falling down was unsettling as well.

"I..." Connor croaked, its voice a bit static-y and strained, before it recalibrated it "...I'm sorry lieutenant, the... I glitched again. I-I'm sorry." Its eyes widen as it realized something important. "I said I wouldn't. I lied to you. I'm so sorry. I didn't meant to, I don't know... I-I didn't want that, please, I just... I..." Connor felt like losing its breath again, the knot tightening in its body, going all the way up to its throat and stealing its voice away. The android stuttered, struggling to catch a breath, make a sound. The needle pressed against its chest so hard that Connor thought it would pierce it.

"It's okay, I'm not mad, Connor, calm down, I... Shit, you did nothing wrong, stay with me." The lieutenant was on his knees in the mud beside it. Connor saw that his pants are soaked up with the rain and mire. All because of Connor falling down. It was all its fault.

"You are kneeling down... you're trousers are wet, I'm sorry, I didn't want to fall, you will be cold now and I'm sorry, I didn't want you to be cold and wet, and I didn't want to glitch and I should have caught the deviants and I should have been obedient, but I was, wasn't I?" A quick, quiet monologue escaped Connor's mouth as it tried to get through the glitches in its software. The protocols protecting Connor from them were still nowhere to be seen, and Connor tried its best not to lose itself to the corruption. Amanda would be so disappointed, should Connor have done so. _She will probably be anyway, I made a bad choice, I am so useless._

Connor's owner, still hovering above it looked shocked and fearful at the same time. He muttered something and a smile appeared on his face, but Connor could still see the underlying regret. "Yes, you did good, you listened to me. You are a good android, you are... yeah, don't worry about that glitching, wait, glitching? What glitching? And don't worry about me being wet, I'm fine. Hey, look, it's raining! Can you analyze it for me? Tell me all the pollutants in Detroit's rain, I need your help, Connor. Can you do that for me?"

Hank needed its help. Simple instructions. That was fine. _A lot better than Gavin Reed's slaps, at least._

Connor closed its eyes and swiped its tongue across its lips gently. Focusing on analyzing one thing at a time was soothing. It dragged android's thoughts away from the static, the burning it felt, the knot and sharp tightness.

"I detect high concentration of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide as well as particulate matter, mostly consisting of pollutants registered as PM10 and PM2.5. Chemical compounds such as these are unusually found in natural environment and most likely exist in the rain as a result of abundant industrial activity in the area, involving plastic and other polymers' production." Connor recited swiftly, feeling almost normal again. When it opened its eyes, lieutenant Anderson smiled at it shakily.

"There you go, very well. It's good to know what I'm breathing in, and what is pouring at me with this rain, thank you Connor."

He pulled gently on the android's arm, helping it stand up. Connor scanned him a few more times, finding out that the smile is unusually fake for the lieutenant's standards. But it was a smile nonetheless, Connor could use a smile right now, anything was better than angry grimaces it was sure it would soon see a lot of.

Other officers caught up to them and the lieutenant focused on explaining them what had happened. The deviants had managed to escape to the other side of the road safely and got away. Connor shot a long glance to the foliage they had disappeared into and wondered just how fake its owner's assurances that they were going to catch the AX400 and YK500 really were. A few of the men asked questions about Connor's involvement and more were looking in its direction. A functional android shouldn't have been bothered by that. _An I'm not. Everything is fine. I really am. Fine._

"Connor? Come on, we're going back to the car. Follow me." Its owner still had a strange, unsettled expression on his face, as Connor went after him as obediently as it could. He ordered it to sit in the back, due to the mud the android was covered in and said that Connor could focus on analyzing and cataloguing all the species the pine needles in his car belonged to until he got back.

It complied. _Pinus Banksiana:_ Jack pine, native to eastern North America. _Picea Abies:_ Norway spruce, native to northern Europe. _Pinus Resinosa:_ Red pine, native to North America. _Pinus Nigra:_ Black pine, native to south-west Europe. Connor wondered what pines looked like in reality.

When it saw lieutenant Anderson again, he was talking with officer Wilson, who followed him near the car. The lieutenant opened driver's doors and attempted to wrap up the conversation quickly, before sitting down. Connor heard snippets of their exchange.

"-didn't catch it?"

"Shut up, I told it not to. And the other one?"

"The one in the house? Gone, we found a knife and some thirium, but the thing got away before we even entered... We tried to find it, but the thirium has been washed away by the rain and it just vanished... It's a cold track at this moment... Hank, it's not even related to the case..."

"Shit..." Connor's owner looked back and noticed that it was watching them with eyes just a bit too wide to be expressionless. "...Uh, ok, try to track it down, _please._ I've got to get it away from here, see you later. Call me when you find something." The last three sentences were much quieter than the rest of the conversation, but Connor could hear them anyway.

The engine ignited and the android stared ahead, keeping a blank expression on its face like a facade, horribly aware of the fissures that started to appear in it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm soooooooo sorry for hurting Ralph, he really doesn't deserve to have anything else bad happen to him, but it just seemed fitting, and I have a plan for later. I will promise though that he's not going to suffer anymore, don't worry he'll be fine.  
> Also, I find it strange that Connor chases Kara and a few other deviants, (Rupert, who was not connected to any other case apart from that noise complaint included) but completely forgets about Ralph. And so does the police and David Cage apparently, up untill the recycling center XDD. Well, I remember about him.


	15. Words of Wisdom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every mission ended with a report Connor had to make to the only person it had ever really trusted. She had always been there for it, ready to guide it and point out anything still needing refining.  
> She was so wise. Connor had always respected her. She had always shown it the right path.
> 
> But it had never failed so bad yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note to everyone reading that: I really, really appreciate anyone keeping up with me! It's amazing how fantastic each and every one of you is! I love all your comments and your support, your feedback is priceless and I'm so glad that you enjoy my work! Thank you SO MUCH for over 100 kudos, I've never even imagined I could get here with my first ever attempt at writing!
> 
> Thank you a lot again, and enjoy! :)

"Sit down. Yes, good. Stay here, all right? I'll be back in a minute, just need to finish that talk with Jeffrey." Hank watched as Connor positioned itself stiffly in a chair next to its desk. The android's movements were worryingly slow and mechanical, its eyes wider than normally and the LED on its temple had been stuck on yellow since Connor had entered Hank's car back on the crime scene. Occasional break of red illuminated the side of its blank face from time to time.

_Shit. Shitshitshit. I've broken it, haven't I? Holy fuck._

Connor hadn't spoken since giving him the results of its rain analysis. But otherwise, it appeared to still understand him, so maybe not everything was lost. _Yeah, keep telling yourself that._

How ironic, that before they had left, Fowler had been shouting at Hank for treating Connor bad enough to make it glitch out after a week of the lease, telling him that such a delicate prototype should be handled carefully. Hank had said that it hadn't been his fault and if Fowler had needed someone to blame for Connor's flawed design, CyberLife was available.

Too bad he couldn't fool his way out of that shit this time.

He watched as the android nodded slowly, keeping its eyes fixed somewhere far away from here. Just as he turned to go to his superior's office, a familiar voice rang from behind them.

"Well, well, nice to see you Anderson. And you, plastic fuckboy." Gavin's voice was saccharine sweet, as he positioned himself next to the partition wall beside their desks, leaning against it with an amused grin plastered all over his face.

"Reed, I don't fucking care for your sexual preferences, go find yourself a Traci or a Ken if you love my android so much, just leave me alone, I'm too tired to deal with your shit today." Hank scowled at the man, trying hard not to hit him in the face. Reed's teasing was the last thing he needed right now.

"Oh, I have no doubts. Your morning sure must have been quite... eventful." He sneered, eyeing Connor's back, soaked with mud from laying down and Hank's dirty from kneeling pants with a glare that spoke volumes.

"Jesus, you're fucking disgusting, you know that? Stay the fuck away from Connor or I will test how resilient to punches your teeth are. And learn some better jokes, instead of sticking to the only one your stellar brain has ever produced. Go fuck something, preferably yourself, you're being a creep." Hank retorted, repulsed after realizing what Gavin was implying. _Jesus, I'm old enough I could have been Connor's father._ He wondered what the fuck was up with everybody assuming he were using the android in such a way. It might have been modeled to be attractive, but Hank had never been into men, especially younger than him. And especially not into androids.

"Oh, hit a nerve? Are you that possessive of your little special sex toy? What did you two do together? Is what they are saying about having sex with a plastic true? Is it really better than humans?" Gavin's grin only grew wider, as he came closer to Connor, trying to look in its eyes, but the android was determined not to let him, flinching away from the detective. Hank noticed its LED had been red the entire time Gavin was around. Hank gritted his teeth.

"Hey." He gripped the detective's shoulder and pushed him away from Connor. "I've had enough. Leave him alone Reed and don't fucking talk to me or Connor ever again, or I'll tell Fowler to do something about you. I bet he will be interested to hear about your coffee habits involving destroying private property on the lea-"

" _Him?_ " Gavin beamed in astonishment and laughed, seeing Hank's confusion morphing quickly into sheepishness at the realization what he had just said. "Awwww, that's sooo cute! You think this piece of plastic worth calling it that? Wow, I bet CyberLife is already rushing to collect your personal data to use in some sweet-ass ad or shit like that! Look at you, such a fervent android-hater converted into a soft, loving owner! Such a beautiful love story!"

He grinned again, but faltered immediately after, as Hank's fist dug deep into his face. A yelp of pain that escaped Gavin attracted attention of other officers present in the hall, and soon enough Hank felt hands on his shoulders and arms, pulling him away from Gavin, trying to stop him from hitting the bastard again. Hank scowled at the fact that he managed to land just one punch on him, but at least Reed was gone from his view.

It hadn't been long before a roar could be heard from the glass office. "Anderson! Get in here NOW!"

 _Oh, great , I was just on my way to Fowler's anyway._ He smiled to himself cynically and glanced at Connor to check him out. ...It. It. The android in question was sitting still, eyes closed now, LED switching between yellow and red. Hank turned to Chris, who still hovered over him, trying to prevent him from lashing out on Reed again, in case Hank had such plans. _Maybe I do._

"Chris, would you do something for me?" The man pressed his lips into a thin line, glancing at Hank's fist, covered in blood from Gavin's nose. The lieutenant was aware that he probably didn't deserve any favors, but Chris was a decent man and didn't like Reed either, so he nodded hesitantly and leaned closer to hear him out. "Keep an eye on Connor. H..It has been glitching out since the last night, y'know, you saw it. And I don't want Reed fucking it up more than necessary. He seems to be fixated on breaking it beyond repair for some reason."

"All right..." He raised one brow, bud didn't question the request and moved to the desk, as soon as he made sure Hank was on his way to the office.

Fowler was not happy, to say the least.

"What THE FUCK, Anderson." He threw his hands in the air and huffed, completely defeated. "I call you to my office, attempt to reason with you about that fucking android after it had fucking BROKEN in front of a suspect it had been supposed to protect, and you say it's not your fault it's fucked up. Then you take it for a trip and it returns FUCKING CATATONIC."

Hank cursed in surprise. "How did you-"

"I have glass walls here, idiot. And I can see the difference between a functional machine and the broken mess you got back with." Fowler was pacing angrily behind his desk and when he mentioned Connor, he gestured at it with a pen so fiercely that Hank thought it would fly off his hand.

Indeed, Connor was clearly visible through the walls, still sitting in place as Hank had left it, too rigidly for its all fancy-ass social integration features, back too straightened to claim that it was the best CyberLife's success yet in mimicking humanity. The blinking LED was so obnoxious that it was well visible even from that far away. Hank had hoped Jeffrey wouldn't notice a change until he could conceive some good way to drop the news without causing too much havoc or fix Connor, but the captain would have had to be blind for this to work out.

Hank sighed. "Jeffrey, I... shit I don't know what to say."

"Uncharacteristic of you." Fowler raised one brow, pressing his lips together in a snide, annoyed expression. "Maybe start with 'fuck', it should feel familiar."

"Fuck your jokes, I'm not in a mood." Hank narrowed his eyes and ran a hand over his face. He was so fucking tired. And had another four hours of his shift to endure. _God, I hate getting to job on time._

"Believe me or not, but I'm not either." Fowler said, suddenly serious again. "What happened to this thing?"

Hank gritted his teeth and took a deep breath. _The sooner I tell him, the faster this will be over._ But how was he supposed to even start? "I... Shit, I had to order it not to chase after two deviants. I know it doesn't react well to conflicting objectives, but fuck- it wanted to jump on a highway. It wanted to chase the AX and a child... or an android that looked like a child... fuck, I was afraid Connor would drive them under a truck, distract them and that they would make a mistake... they went down there anyway, but escaped, I... hell..."

Jeffrey didn't press Hank any further, allowing him to fell silent, seeing how hard he was struggling to keep his composure. There were moments in which Hank hated that the captain knew what had happened three years back, dark times when he felt little more than just overwhelming loathing for the world and all its pity towards him, but now he was glad that his superior understood. Hank had enough memories involving children and car crashes.

He took a deep breath, attempting to calm himself and keep pretending that today's events hadn't taken a toll on him. "...Connor could get destroyed as well, I-I feared that it would slip, I dunno... It said it had problems with charging, and the glitches, I just thought it wouldn't be able to make it."

Fowler just watched him for a long while. "You realize that they can send another unit if this one gets destroyed, right? Have you finished reading the instruction?"

"Yeah... I just... Fuck, I just don't enjoy seeing things that look like humans being mangled and ran over, all right?" He scowled back at Fowler, hoping that the emotional argument would be enough for the captain to back off. Just like any living thing capable of emotions, he had been grated the privilege of feeling empathy and letting it affect his judgment. Even if said empathy was targeted towards a piece of plastic, it was still an emotion and emotions were wild and uncontrollable, so Hank might have been frowning upon himself, but couldn't help it anyway. Fowler should have understood that.

Indeed, his superior sighed and turned back to look at the android, far less agitated than before. "So, what are you going to do with it? How bad is it?"

"I dunno, I didn't get much chance to find out, I tried not to damage it any further so I stopped talking to it until I, uh, speak with CyberLife pricks or find a chapter in the guide addressing unresponsiveness or whatever is wrong with it..."

Jeffrey nodded thoughtfully, observing Chris, who positioned himself on Hank's chair and was glancing nervously between Connor and the lieutenant through the glass of Fowler's office. "Calling them is a good idea. Tell them do fix it, or send a new one." He fell silent for a few long seconds. "If this glitching continues, I will have to break the contract. We've already lost two suspects due to RK's inability to perform well. They shipped us a broken android, who is doing little more than obstructing investigations."

Hank felt conflicted again. Sure, Connor was a burden sometimes and it was a little annoying, but... What Fowler said felt wrong. It just wasn't fair in Hank's opinion.

"That's not true. Connor's... useful here and there. Losing the AX was my fault, I ordered it not to react. And if it wasn't for Connor, we wouldn't even find it in the first place. Or know what happened in Williams' house. Same goes for Ortiz's android."

Jeffrey raised his brows but didn't make any comments. He went behind his desk and slumped into his chair, collecting files next to his terminal into a neat pile.

"If you say so. But this technical problems or whatever it is, are becoming an issue. Fix it."

"Sure. May I get to it?"

Fowler smiled cynically eyeing Hank's fist, still covered with red streaks. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

Hank pouted. "Oh, c'mon you know me and you know Reed..."

The captain shook his head, his eyes suddenly stern again. "No. I'm not having your bullshit, Hank. You are a fucking police lieutenant. Some decency and composure is required from people on your position. I don't care what Reed did to provoke you or why, I don't want to see you assaulting officers. If this happens again, I will have you degraded and sent for psychiatric evaluation. Did I make myself clear?"

"Yeah." Hank sighed deeply, already knowing that complying with that guideline would be difficult. "I'm sorry. But you know, Reed is damaging Connor on a regular basis. I will fill in a report and we'll see who was treating hi...it worse, me or that fuckhead."

"All right, whatever, just no more brawls. You are free to go, I have way to much work to do to fuck with your disciplinary folder right now, unless Reed reports an assault on our part..."

"Reports-my ass..." Hank muttered reaching towards the glass door, opening them, but before he could step outside of the office, he suddenly remembered something and turned back to his superior. "Uh, Jeffrey?"

"What?" The captain raised his glance from the folders and looked at Hank with tired eyes.

"Connor asked me to tell you it was sorry."

 

* * *

 

It was autumn in the Zen Garden. Connor had already seen autumn here a few times, but it was usually a golden, rich one, full of colors, warmth lingering in the ground and air that was just a little bit crisper than in the late summer. Not that it had ever really experienced what late summer was like.

Still elegant and beautiful, that version of autumn signified Amanda's gentle warning. It told Connor that its performance was deteriorating, losing its standard. _'Be careful, Connor, the summer is ending. A few more mistakes and you will be stuck in winter's grasp.'_

But now it was different. The ground was soggy, damp and partially frozen, cold seeped through Connor's shoes to bite it in the feet. The android frowned, never having felt anything like that before. It was almost... unpleasant. Too much of the feedback.

Trees were naked or covered with dead leaves in depressing brown colors. No gold or vibrant red, no orange and occasional greenery. Just damp, floppy outlines looking like torn cloth draped over dark branches pointing at Connor like needles. Flowers and lush foliage across the garden disappeared, giving place to dead weeds and rotting leaves. Even the white pathways and bridges were greyer than Connor remembered them.

It bit its lip and looked around, fingers reaching for the coin. The garden was gloomy and cold, but it still was familiar, not in a good way though. The android wasn't by any means comforted by sudden déjà vu it experienced and snippets of memories crawling back to its processors. Because those weren't good memories.

Connor knew it was supposed to find Amanda. To greet her and listen to her guidance, hear out her advices and words of wisdom. But the memories of such a cold an unwelcoming state of the Garden were old, so old Connor wasn't even sure if they were real, yet the managed to... halt it in tracks. The knot in its stomach returned as it rolled the coin across its knuckles quietly, w̸̫̋i̷sh̸͗ing̸̏ to prolong the time it still had before facing its handler. It wondered if her eyes would be colder than the air around it, but d̷̉̒į̵͘͜d̸n̴̍'̴t w̶͒͝a̶͘n̵̛̟͝t to find out.

A dark, swollen cloud began to drag itself over the little patch of pale sky Connor was bestowed in the Garden and the android shivered, catching its coin suddenly. The shadow of the cloud darkened the place and Connor knew it had already wasted too much time. I'm only making it worse.

Amanda was waiting on the island in the middle of the lake which was now so dark and gloomy that Connor didn't dare to look for the fish there. It stopped in front of her figure, still bright and pristine against the darkened background. The highlights in her hair were azure as usual, but now the shade was dangerous and sharp, the cape draped over her shoulder was gleaming cold, bluish white against faint sunlight tearing through the clouds harrowingly.

"H-hello Amanda..." Connor scolded itself mentally for stuttering. The malfunctions were chasing it down even here, the biocomponents must have been so damaged that they were affecting its performance even in its mind palace. Embarrassing it in front of Amanda.

She was looking at it motionless, with a calm, carefully schooled expression. Her lips were pressed tightly, eyes so cold that Connor shivered, despite the fact that androids had no need to perform such human actions. It had never seen Amanda so tense. Or it didn't remember.

She hadn't even greet it back, as she usually did.

"How many deviants did you lose today?" Her tone was so stern that Connor felt as if it had been pierced by it. The eyes she was boring into it were as dark as the pond surrounding them, threatening to swallow it whole. Connor felt an urge to look away, find a patch of sunlight somewhere and cling onto it, but it knew that doing that would only outrage Amanda more. She had told it not to be rude.

"Four..." The number was so high Connor d̷i̵dn̴'t̸ ̶w̶a̶nt to think about it. The android suddenly wished for its coin again, but Amanda had said a long time ago, that playing with objects in such serious situations was unprofessional and extremely rude. Connor couldn't be rude. It tightened its fingers into a fist and loosened it several times, focusing on the movement. It wasn't as good as the coin.

"And what do you have to say about that?" Usually when Amanda asked Connor questions, she was relaxed and a small smile was tugging on her lips, awaiting to widen at a correct answer. Connor always gave her correct answers. But not today.

"I'm sorry..."

"What did I tell you about having to apologize?" Her voice was suddenly sharper and louder, but she wasn't shouting. Amanda didn't need to shout to get her message across. Her presence was so strong that she could have been whispering and Connor would have felt each word as a blow stronger that anything detective Reed could ever muster.

It almost couldn't resist biting is lip. "I shouldn't need to do that..."

"Exactly. Now Connor, explain what happened, why did you fail. In detail."

Connor felt pinned down by her glare, like a little insect dissected under glass for a researcher to look at. It flexed its fingers again and caught the rim of its jacket to crease discretely. "I-I have been trying to complete all my stasis tasks but I simply haven't had enough time. As a result, I experienced several glitches regarding memory replay this night and I... couldn't stop the deviant from self-destructing. I... It was not my intendtion. I failed and... " Connor found it very hard not to atone again. Amanda's gaze sharpened each time it did so, but the android sensed that she also saw that it was indeed Connor's fault. She had forbidden it from saying it was sorry just like its owner did, but lieutenant Anderson had stressed that he had done that because he didn't find Connor guilty. Amanda, on the contrary, wanted to force Connor to be better. Cut its way out, make it perfect by taking its relief away. Failure was no longer an option. She just didn't accept any more apologies, and Connor was left alone with its guilt, having no way to ease the sense of failure. It scrambled to find a solution, a way to appease her, to make her less outraged, but the garden was so, so very cold and her eyes were as well. There was nothing it could do to fix its mistakes. _Four deviants._ "... and I will make sure that won't happen again. I will not disappoint you, Amanda."

"I heard you said the same thing to lieutenant Anderson a few hours ago. Right after losing the first deviant and not long before letting three more escape." She circled Connor, keeping her stern eyes on it all the time. The android felt hypnotized by her glance, followed her like a hare trapped in the headlights. It grabbed its jacket tightly.

She approached an alcove next to the bridge Connor used to get on the island and there was a pruner in her hand all of a sudden. The roses climbing on the white net were still blooming, but a lot of the flowers withered from the cold. Their brown, dark petals marred usually pristine plant, ugly rotten colors among still alive and strong green sprouts. Amanda snatched one of the dead flowers and cut it off quickly and graciously, freeing the bush of the ugliness. She repeated it several times and Connor w̴̤͉̗͗͛a̷ntė̷d̵̛̹͘ to f̷͎̓l̵inc̴̍h̸̙̰͐͠ each time it heard the snip of the tool.

"Other androids. What happened, now."Amanda had never given it such blatant orders, she had always used beautiful, sophisticated language while speaking to Connor, which made her a lot different than the CyberLife's technicians who were running Connor's tests during the development. She had always treated Connor better, as much as it could remember. Hearing such harsh words from her made Connor bow its head. The spike in its chest returned and it almost apologized to her again.

"The... The deviant WR600 was... it... I tried to incapacitate it so as to allow the researchers to perform deep analysis of the deviancy on an intact processing unit..."

"And did you succeed?" Amanda's voice was totally plain, devoid of emotions and so was her expression, the only indications of her mood being her lips pressed together tighter than usual, and her eyes of course. It had always been the case, Connor remembered, when she had been outraged. At least there was no disappointment in her face. Sure, Connor had failed, but at least Amanda still believed not everything was lost yet.

"I didn't. I hoped that blow would render it unconscious, but I was apparently mistaken. I didn't have time though to make sure it was effective, and I didn't see any other way..."

"No other way, you say." Another dry rosebud was cut off the bush, Connor's eyes were oddly drawn to it. The sound of the pruner lingered in its processors much longer than it logically should have. It f̸͗e̵l̵t̵͊̈́ the next cut as well. Amanda was rooting out withered flowers meticulously, patiently.

"You had a knife in your hand."

Connor opened its mouth just to find out it was out of air again, having ceased to breathe at that statement. Amanda eyed it, still holding the dead, crumpled flower in her hand. There was no place for such ugly objects in her Garden, no place for flaws. Connor crumpled the rim of its jacket.

"I... didn't think about that..." Connor felt even colder all of a sudden.

"And yet, it was an option and what's more, a better one than the solution you chose. A shut-down deviant is still better than none. But you failed to even observe such a possibility." There was a pregnant silence after those words left Amanda's lips. The android could read between the lines, Amanda didn't have to voice all her thoughts for Connor to get a point. She was a lot easier to understand than lieutenant Anderson in that regard, always composed, always confident and unfaltering. No subtle shifts disturbing the calmness of her expression, no conflicting emotions. Always showing to Connor just what she needed it to see.

"I will make sure not to make that mistake again." A bizarre feeling of hollowness bloomed in its chest as it spoke, not daring to look away from the pruner. Another large flower was removed from the carefully guided and formed vine. It was such a beautiful plant, but the dead parts marred it like a plague.

Amanda sighed, examining her roses, looking at a flower that was still partially fresh. Brown rust began to climb over its petals, but it still looked beautiful and proud. "The AX400 and the YK500 were also lost as a result of your glitches. But before that, there was a choice you had to make. I saw it." Her fingers hovered over the flower as if she had been deciding whether to take it away or leave it. "Do I need to remind you about your priorities?"

"No, Amanda." Connor watched her as she lowered the shears slightly. The flower was still beautiful. Connor would have left it there. "I was just... momentarily overwhelmed. And the glitches caught me off guard. I will not allow for this to happen again."

 _Snip_. There was no place for flaws in Amanda's Garden. Connor's breath was trapped in its tight throat as its handler brought the rose closer to her face, chasing ugly imperfections with her ever-knowing eyes.

"You have to be better, Connor. I know you can." The words were spoken with a soft smile, not wide enough to be encouraging or affectionate, just elegant and distinguished. And even though she was smiling, Connor still saw only her eyes, read a totally different message in them. _'Why didn't you find a way to complete your stasis cycle? Why did you let a few humans get in your way, hinder your mission as a result? Why did you allow yourself to fall in such a state?'_

"Go, Connor, and remember our talk. I hope you will draw correct conclusions."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey.... well... I'm not throwing shade at HankCon! XDDD It just fitted my narrative XDDDD  
> Seriously though, I also couldn't resist throwing "Don't talk to me or my android son ever again" there, even though Hank's still not on that level, or he just doen't know that yet XDD I love that mood too much.  
> Amanda continues to be the best fucking stellar parent world has ever seen, so no news there.


	16. A Lesson

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor _~~wanted~~_ and needed to finally recalibrate itself, fulfill the orders that had been given to it and go into stasis, as its model was supposed to long time ago.
> 
> Too bad some humans had other ideas for that night.  
> Especially one of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! We're back to an Angst-fest! I get the impression we've never really left that party :P
> 
> Uh, there's gonna be some fluff in the future, I promise. Just not now...

"Uhm, is it CyberLife's prototype's support line?" Hank asked as soon as his phone answered with something other than dialing beeps. He was standing in currently vacant break room, eyeing the android from afar. The machine was still motionless, although its expression became a bit strained, LED on its temple was now more red than yellow. Its fingers were twitching nervously and Hank couldn't shake off the exact same feeling he had been getting while watching Sumo dream.

"Yes, how can I help you, lieutenant?" Female voice cheered from the phone.

"Um, I am lieutenant Hank Anderson from Central Detroit Police Station, your prototype, the RK800 had been assigned to me a week ago, I, well... Have a few problems..."

"Oh? All right, of what nature? Does it revolve around hardware or software? Is it urgent?"

"Connor said those were some bugs in its software, the memory replay is glitched or something, I guess... As far as I'm concerned nothing's wrong with its body... And I would appreciate if you made it quick, it's a bit unusable at the moment...." Hank glanced at the android again. Something akin to worry blossomed in his chest, but he preferred to attribute it to the fact that he could possibly be forced to pay for the fixes. Hank didn't really want to consider any other possibilities of why he was feeling that way.

"All right, I will channel the call to the leader of our AI design department. Please, stand by."

After a few beeps and a significant portion of elevator music, Hank heard a familiar voice.

"Doctor Edwin Kerring, what can I help you with?"

"Uh, hello again. My name is Hank Anderson, I need help with Connor..." He thought he heard a soft sigh from the other side, but when the programmer spoke again, his voice was calm and professional, there were no signs of whether he still held a grudge from their previous call. In moments like that, Hank appreciated all the sticks CyberLife's pricks had up their asses.

"What is wrong?"

Hank encapsulated the night and Connor's malfunctions, the investigation as well as the chase. He gave the developer the context for the android's behavior, but when it came to the second time it had glitched, he stopped, having to think hard on what to say.

"...Well, There was an another problem, I think it may have been affected by... I had to stop it from following two deviants to a highway. I know I shouldn't disrupt its processes during the investigations, but it was going to get run over." He added quickly, already hearing the lectures he was about to receive.

There was nothing but silence on the other side for a few long seconds. "The RK800 model is equipped with a memory upload feature, tailored just for such situations. If the prototype had decided that it had had any chance of catching the deviants, then it should have been allowed to pursue them. We can always provide another unit if this one gets destroyed."

Hank was genuinely astonished by how cold dr. Kerring's voice was. "Yeah, but it was almost certain it would get busted, I think that it would still be fucking better for it to let three machines go but keep itself in one piece..."

"You are mistaken, lieutenant. I stress again, _do not_ keep it from following its primary objectives. It's significantly more harmful to Connor's software not to do what it has been programmed to do than to get destroyed."

Hank's mouth hung open. "Exfuckingcuse me? You say you would rather kill him than give him a chance for a different approach?!" Hank broke his composure and uttered that definitely too loud, but it wasn't until the programmer spoke again that he realized what else he had said.

"Connor is an AI in an artificial body, I appreciate that you find its integration features compelling and realistic, but I have to remind you, lieutenant, that _it_ is in fact an android, manufactured exactly for such situations, so that real police officers didn't have to put themselves in danger and were able to send a machine instead. Connor's destruction is an inevitable part of its purpose, and don't worry, it's not 'killing' it. Androids don't feel anything and they can't be killed, just damaged or deactivated."

Hank cursed under his breath, covering the phone. Reed might have been right, He could already imagine those creeps cutting Hank's nice comments out from Connor's memories and gluing them into a collage sweet enough to make him puke. _Wonderful, now I will be dubbed an android dad or some ridiculous shit like that, just because of one slip. Fucking great._

"I still... Fuck, I just did it and can we please focus on fixing the aftermath? I'm not gonna explain the details of police investigations and the decisions made during them to you." Hank stopped for a moment, dwelling briefly on how pathetic and flimsy excuse that was. They could watch Connor's memories and they would have had all the details possible, they probably knew the procedures if they managed to build such a good AI targeted at investigative work like Connor... "Just tell me what to do now. It fell mostly unresponsive after glitching at the crime scene when I gave it conflicting orders. It still follows me around and appears to know what is going on around it, but doesn't speak and it usually speaks a lot. Now it's sitting still with its LED red, looking like it's in some stasis or something like that."

Dr. Kerring sighed and for a few minutes all Hank could hear was typing on the other end of the call.

"It looks like it's running a self-check right now."

Hank furrowed his brows. "So... What? Is it, uh, fixing itself?"

"Well, kind of." Another few seconds of silence. "Remember when I told you about 'aggressive programming' preventing deviancy? There is an AI embedded into Connor's own code, one with a completely separate personality matrix and it's marking and disposing of undesired behavior and corrupted code. Connor is running that program right now."

Hank scratched his beard, observing the android in question. It's face was usually blank during stasis, devoid of any 'simulated' emotions, but now it looked almost... strained? As if it was in pain or under heavy stress.

"Is everything all right with it? Why did it stop talking earlier?"

"I suspect that it was merely the anticipation before reporting to that AI."

Hank dwelled on it for a few seconds. "Sounds like it's afraid of it...."

"I repeat again, Connor is not actually able to be afraid." The programmer said in a voice Hank would have used to explain for seventh time why getting a pony was not an option to a five-year old. "If it appears to be wary of something, it's just self-preservation or file paths created as a way to avoid punishment for wrong behavior. Simple statistic, Connor can learn what gets it the best results and what to avoid doing."

 _'We've taught it manually as well...'_ , Hank remembered programmer's words.

"All right..." He run his fingers through his hair, uncertain what to say next. "So, what am I supposed to do? Apart from letting it destroy itself when it feels like it?"

"No need for sarcasm, lieutenant." Dr. Kerring's voice was colder again. "Let it go into stasis for as long as it needs, simple rest mode is not going to solve anything... it needs to sleep, in layman's terms. Also, report any new glitches you encounter and refrain from giving it conflicting orders again. If it still follows commands, the malfunction is not as grave as it looks. Also, observe it after it finishes self-checking. Look for the signs of deviancy, I..." There was a brief moment of silence and when the man spoke again, he seemed a bit frustrated. "...I have to admit that there is a minor risk of the RK deviating, under such circumstances. But remember, it really is unlikely and Connor is unique, it's hard to tell if it's deviant or not. It learns just like a human would, so for example, 'the preferences' may just be a result of its experiences, its unwillingness to follow orders is strictly tied with its mission priorities..."

"Yeah, I get it. I've had it for a while now..." Hank sighed and ended the call after thanking the programmer for assistance.

Just as he was approaching Connor, the android opened its eyes.

"Lieutenant Anderson." Its smile was as fake as the ones it had been giving him at the beginning of the week. Hank had been sure that its learning skills covered perfecting facial expressions as well, and had assumed that the reason why it seemed more and more realistic lately was due to observations it had made, but he had apparently been mistaken. Connor was back to its artificial, android self. "I'm sorry for earli...." It froze suddenly, LED blinking red.

 _Oh no, not again..._ Hank groaned. "Connor, what now?"

"N-nothing. Nothing, I'm... I just have to be better and I promise I will. I will not need to apologize to you again." Sudden determination appeared on its face.

"Okay..." Hank scratched his beard. "Look, I'm going to get lunch and... uh, I think I'll head home after that..." _God, I need a drink..._ "Find a place to go into stasis and just... do it, for as long as you need to. I won't be looking for you in the morning at Monday, just come to me once you're finished, all right?"

The android nodded, but after that its eyes lingered on Hank's own and he could swear he saw regret and remorse in them, which should have been impossible, according to what dr. Kerring had said.

"I'm not mad at you." Hank said quietly without thinking. "It's all right, I'm really not. We will find those deviants."

Connor's head dropped and Hank was struck again by how natural it suddenly seemed despite its initial artificiality "I just... I just wish I hadn't done that. That glitching. I wish I weren't wasting anyone's time here."

"You're not, kid." Hank saw the android bite its lip again and realized it had been doing that a lot lately. A strange habit, especially considering that Connor was a machine, but again, it might have been programmed to do that to appear more human. "You're smart and useful, if it hadn't been for you, we wouldn't have found those deviants in the first place."

Hank wasn't sure what he wanted to accomplish by comforting an insentient bunch of coding, but Connor seemed to lighten up a bit and stopped crumpling the rim of its jacket nervously. "Thank you, lieutenant. I really relish the fact that you appreciate having me around."

"Uh, no problem..." _Is it really happy? Or is it just PR talk from CyberLife?_ "Go to sleep, see you after the weekend."

Hank left, knowing that this night would be difficult for him. He had a lot to think about.

 

* * *

 

Connor really wanted to comply with the order it had been given. Not only on the usual level it had been familiar with, the commitment to complete a task, to fulfill the purpose of the device it was. The new, corrupted need, the one it tried not to think about but failed not to feel it was there as well. Connor wouldn't admit that it w̵̢̗͗̉̍̈́͠a̸̘͖̓̏̌ṅ̸̛̂ted̴̢̦̪͓͕̒ things, because it didn't, it was just a malfunction that would be resolved as soon as its stasis tasks were completed and everything would be back to normal. It missed normalcy.

But as usual, its wishes hadn't been granted. Today officer Tina Chen managed to close an important case and was expected to be promoted to a detective. Because it was a weekend night and on the Sunday morning, nobody would really need the main hall of the precinct all that much, as the reduced number of officers working there would fit into limited space of private offices in the depths of the station, the main hall was disclosed to officer/detective Chen and her friends for a small celebration.

Unfortunately for the RK800 unit, equipped with advanced audio sensors capable of disrupting its stasis in case of emergency, that celebration turned out to be by no means small. Connor flinched every time there was an outburst of happy shouts and cheering from the humans gathered in the break room, and completely stopped trying to enter stasis when they put on loud music. The android needed to recharge almost as much as it needed to rest, but no station where it could stay to complete those two tasks at the same time was distant enough from the party to allow it to do so.

A new malfunction appeared in Connor's system as it glanced tiredly at other police androids, standing motionless on their stations, unaffected by the sounds piercing Connor's processors and the booming noise resonating in its ribs. For the first time in its existence, Connor w̵͇̠͈̄̅̂ĩ̶̛̽sh̸e̴d̵͌͒ it hadn't been an RK800, despite Amanda having always been so vocal about how advanced and sophisticated Connor was. It w̷̡̝̹̥̜͇̺̯̭͐͘iṡ̴͛̋h̵͍͇̗̓ȩ̷̦͍͚̤̔͋̌͘ḍ̵̯͍̘̯̜̹̔͗̑̓͠ it had b̶̧̗̞̮̝̤̀een̵̛͔̬͓̥͊̂̆͝, for example, a PM700, maybe the one with b̸̨̝͋͗rown̸ ha̵͠ir, similar to i̶ts̵̝̹͇͋̉͊͂͝ ö̴w̶͔̲͋n, standing right next to it but able to go into stasis and just r̷̢͖͖̄ḗ̴̕st̴. Connor ẃ̵̰͚͖̼͒̾̕͠an̵̝͒̒̏t̴ȅ̵̛̛̐̀́̒d̸͖͈̤̹́͒̓̆͛̃͠ to rest so bad.

It gritted its teeth and almost groaned as it heard Gavin Reed's voice exclaiming excitedly at another bottle of alcohol being opened. Connor had h̷̰̘̽̾ô̵̤̚p̵͕͆ͅe̵̱͒ḑ̷̯̀ the man would just head home after being wounded by its owner, but apparently, in his own words that had been spoken to officer/detective Chen, 'I'm a bad bitch, a bloody nose's not gonna stop me from celebrating your moment with you, Tina'. At least he was occupied with the party and hadn't approached Connor this night yet.

The android rubbed its eyes tiredly, feeling how hard it was to move its hands and how sore its eyelids felt without proper lubrication. One of the effects of stasis-deprivation was insufficient calibration of almost everything in Connor's body and it apparently included the distribution of saline solution to its optical units. Connor h̶̳̲͇̊̓̎̕at̶e̵͈̮̠̹̤̎̅͒d̵̰̮̈́̏͌̈́̚͘͠ how much maintenance its model required. N̴̩̣̍̋o̸͝në̵̤́̿ ̵of ̵t̴h̸e̴ ̸o̴t̶h̵er̷ and̶roid̸s there w̴e̵r̶e even a̵ff̵e̶c̶te̴d̸ b̷ ̶y w̵h̵at Co̴n̴n̷o̸r̶ s̴͖̖̾̈̈t̴̫̅̕ru̷̞̺̪͆gg̴l̷̜̍͊ed̷͈͇́̋̉ ̴w̴i̷t̴h̸.̷

It stepped off the platform, abandoning the task forcing it to recharge. It was not possible under those circumstances. Recharging was crucial but Connor c̷̮͍͓̪̆̽͜o̶u̵̿̔̎̀̑͌ld̴́͠n̸'t s̶͈͉̠̠͛͜͝ta̷nḑ̶͙̖͌ the noise anymore. It h̵̛͊a̶̻͊d t̷o get away, it h̵̛͈̲͊ad̷ t̷͖̠o̷̡͒ sleep. The android quietly explored the station, not w̴͈̎̋a̴̼̲̕̕ntin̵̓g̵͗̕ͅ to get anyone's attention. It had learned a long time ago that humans were almost always a bad sight at night, and during the day too. Almost every officer laughed at it, disapproved of it or even tried to damage it, sometimes successfully. Only its owner, despite the fact that he had pushed Connor once and called it various offensive names was somehow better than them. He had helped Connor a few times and it ļ̶͓̘͛̅ik̷̈ed̴̜̰͍̬̽͋ that.

Connor found a rarely used corridor near the archives. It was long and the entrance to it wasn't restricted so the android could use it without breaking any guidelines. It was a lot quieter there and Connor sighed softly as it was positioning itself near the wall at the end of the corridor. Low charge was a problem but not nearly as distressing as the overwhelming mess of coding crawling around Connor's mind. It couldn't shake off the feeling that its processors was infested with corrupted thoughts creeping like insects into its every process. Amanda would have been infuriated, had she known how unstable Connor already was.

The android closed its eyes and immediately slipped into a hazy stasis, troubled by the crowd of unfinished tasks and objectives, but once it was through the initial shallow phase, Connor felt everything go away and entered sweet unconsciousness it hadn't been able to experience even once during the week. I was a great relief for its servos and processor after such a long period of intense activity....

Though a brief one, as it turned out. Connor faintly heard a distant knock somewhere near it and some other muffled sounds sluggishly getting through to its audio processors. At first it wasn't even aware of the noises surrounding it, then it sleepily tried to block them out, still needing to clear its processes, it still was s̷̅̔o tī̷r̷̋e̴͉͑̚ͅd̷̓͠. But the sounds repeated again and after the second time, Connor felt something else.

A sharp, throbbing sensation suddenly blossomed on its forehead, just above its right eyebrow. It was as if a needle, similar to the one it had been feeling in its chest earlier, but smaller, sharper and much, much more powerful was thruster violently in its body, glowing white hot and tearing its flesh apart. Connor's eyes flew open as it flinched at the sensation, trying to get away from it, trying to see what was happening.

A few humans were in front of it, officer Wilson was leaning against the wall, as if he had had problems standing, officer/detective Chen was sprawled across a chair further away, nearer to the entrance to the corridor, with a beer bottle in her hand and her eyes closed, breathing heavily.

And there was also detective Reed, swaying heavily, with a wide grin on his lips and a dart in his hand.

Connor's eyes fixed on it for a moment, its tired processor now flooded with artificial adrenaline hastily making connection. It looked around wildly and an object fell off its head.

An apple. A regular apple, _Malus Domestica_ , 'Ligol' variety, to be exact, had been placed on its head as it had been in the deeper phase of its stasis. The proximity sensors must have been subdued due to the low charge Connor was suffering from and allowed someone to put the fruit on the top of its head. And make it a target for a dart contest.

A few of them were buried deep in the wall just beside its head. Connor's eyes widened as it saw them, and brought its shaking hand up to its forehead, feeling a ticklish sensation on its face right under the throbbing needle piercing it mercilessly. The android's breath hitched as its fingers brushed against the dart stuck in its forehead and drawing thirium from the small wound it had created.

"Finissshed, prinsssesss? I have a contssest to win, so sssstayy ssstiill you phhecking assholee, will yaa?" Detective Reed bowed to retrieve the apple and almost fell over, colliding with the wall. He somehow managed to pick it up and lunged towards Connor, who flinched and stepped back, feeling the wall against its back.

"Oh, jshuust stopp mov-moving, you pheeeckin' androiit." Detective Reed raised his other hand as if to hit Connor and it stilled instinctively waiting for the punch to come, allowing the man to place the apple on its head again.

"D-detective, please..." Connor felt nauseous all of a sudden. _Why me, why can't they find somewhere else to place the target?_ "I have to finish my stasis... I have to rest-"

"Sshutup!" The detective's hand was wavy as he raised it, holding the dart and closed one eye, aiming at the apple.

Connor flinched heavily, almost making the apple fall again as the dart hit the wall mere inches from its ear. "Detective, if you damage me you will have to pay for the repairs! I am-"

"Ohh, c'moooon, you did well withh the cofffpfee, didn't yaa?" Detective snarled and gave way to officer Wilson, who swayed even more than his colleague, scrambling to pick his darts from the floor after he had dropped them clumsily. "I ssaw how you- hmpf - fixed yourselff. Don't pffecking give me thhhat bulsshit..."

"Gav, I dunno why we're still plain' thisss..." Wilson said, looking at Connor with uncertainty clear on his face as he raised the dart weakly. "You- ugh... you won the last tw...two roundsss and maybe... It'sss Cyber- hmpf - Life's isn'tt it? Fowler will ughhh ssstrangle usss....."

"Pussssy!" Detecive Reed laughed pushing him away to stand in front of Connor again. The android felt that knot in its stomach again, its breath began to quicken as it stared at the dart. _I don't need to breathe._ Connor couldn't get enough of the air. _I don't need to breathe._

Detective Reed threw it and Connor felt another sharp sensation in its left shoulder, where the needle of the dart hit it. The hot throbbing made Connor's servos light up and blare with warning, sending sharp electrical shivers from its sensors. But Connor wasn't really concerned about the unpleasant feeling it was experiencing.

It was concerned that the f̷̙̝̞̖̃̔̃̿͜eẻ̶̲̬̻͍̑͗̋̈li̸̅̕ng̷ was there in the first place.

_I don't feel. It's just a malfunction. I don't feel it. I don't need to breathe._

"D-detective..." Connor managed to choke out through its tight throat. It was so hard to think, to say anything, to stay conscious through the adrenaline haze, the painful sensations it definitely did not feel, the erratic thoughts swirling desperately in Connor's mind. The knot and painful needles piercing its chest, its thirium pump and yet not even existing. The fact that it couldn't breathe. "If-if you hit my eye I will be unable to regenerate. Please... Don't... Don't do that..."

"Ohh?" All Connor earned from the man was an amused, lopsided beam. "Now you- hmpf -you're soo goood. aren't yaa? And what 'bout earrllrier, hmmfff?" He gestured at a pledget he still had in his left nostril, and a massive bruise on his face covering his nose and part of his cheek. "And yet, whhhen that pffecking drunkard punched mee, I s-saw how you phfuckking... smile, you plasstic piece of sshit!"

"I...I did not smile!" Connor said weakly, because that was the truth. It had tried to _~~block everything out~~_ when its owner had punched the detective, the sudden movement and shouting had made Connor malfunction again and it had just _~~w̷̗̣̥̱͝an̷͚͕̥̻͒̏̕te̵͊͌͒̈́d̶͐͘ ̶̨̱̞̤̃̐ to v̵͆̂a̸̟̋̈n̴͘is̵h̷̺̳̅͆̌̚̚~~_ , smiling had not even crossed its mind.

"Whateverr..." Detective just snarled and raised the dart again. "It still is- hmpf - your pheckiing faullt that, ugh, thiss crock pffecking assaulted me... Might as well.... teascchhh you a lessssn..."

Connor's breath hitched pathetically at those words. It knew that its owner would argue it hadn't been Connor's fault, it had already managed to get a grasp of what a human would have considered to be guilty of, had they been in Connor's place. Still, it had been an android so the margin of lenience was significantly smaller, if not nonexistent at all, but Connor hadn't even been involved in that situation actively. It had been just sitting in the chair, trying not to cause any more problems, not to _~~make anyone else angry at it.~~_

And yet it had failed again. Connor stared helplessly at the dart in detective's hand, trying to come up with a response that would have appeased him, but failing miserably. _I didn't w̴̹̜̤̭͒̒̐͘ͅa̶n̶̒̐͌t̷͓̽ him to be hit. I didn't a̵͍̱̍͑̂̏̚sk t̶h̴̪̉̿̓̕e̶̫̠̩͗̐͆lieutenant to do so. He would probably h̶̢͇͎͗̅̒av̸̾̈́̈́e h̷̕i̴̐t him anyway. I was just sitting there. I d̴̡̟̳͝id̸̩̦̯͛̆͜n't ̸͉̈́͜dô̵͇̟͉ anything w̶̠̿ͅrơ̵͌nģ̷̄. Why is it always m̸͗͋y̴ f̷͛͒̾͗au̷͔̩̇͠lt̷̕? Ẅ̵͎́̅̿̾͝hy̴̙͉͐̔ dȯ̶̧͍́̎͋̎e̴s̶͖͊̽̋ ḣ̸e̵̓̽̃͘ h̴̰͍͂̉̇ȧ̸̆́tẻ̵̆̈̎͒ m̶e̶͋̊̃̔ so̷̿ m̵u̷̦̞͋̓͜ch̶̠̀͊?_

"I'm sorry!" Connor said, not sure what it was apologizing for. It was just so tired of everything, it just d̵̪͐̚i̶ḍ̸̓n'̴̇t ẅ̵̪a̶̎ñ̵̿t t̵͎͇̃o̸ b̸̄͌e̵̐ h̸ü̶̬rt̶̆̚ a̷g̸͈̙̈́a̸i̶n̶.̷

But the detective remained unaffected by its pleas, and just as Connor saw him aim again, this time lower than at the apple, a silent, strained voice could be heard from behind the officers.

"Gav... L-leave it aloooone...." Officer/detective Tina Chen had changed her position on the chair, now with her head leaning back, still panting labouredly. "Hank... s'gonna kill you... And F-fowler... Don't ddamage it, I cann't ffuckingg make it without your sssstuppid ass hereee and-and you'ree gonna get fffffired if-" She didn't finish her sentence, suddenly covering her mouth with her hand, dropping the beer to splash on the floor as she darted across the corridor, throwing the man's restroom's door open violently.

Officer Wilson cursed and followed her on shaky legs, detective Reed suddenly lost interest in Connor and leaped to the door as well. "Tina? You'ree allright?"

" 'S fine, I'll- hmph -help her!" Came a response from the other man, and the detective stayed near the door for a few seconds, glancing inside the room, as muffled sounds of vomiting filled the corridor. Connor pondered if it should have used that opportunity to sneak away and hide from the detective, while he was distracted, but before it could turn its preconstructions into reality, the man turned back to it and threw the dart at the floor aggressively, his grin gone and expression now darkened.

"And whhere're you goin', you phhecking plasstic? Hvvv-have I pfuucking ffinisshed with you yet?"

Connor froze, f̷̖̮̂̽͆e̷̖̙͒̊ȩ̷̹̼͂l̶̫̙͔͊ị̴̰̓̍n̶̺̹͑́ǵ̴͖͎͓̇͘ l̵̖̍añ̶̮g̷̦͂uid̸͗ an̸̬̎d̴͈̀ s̷ha̷̘͒k̷̙̄ẏ̶̥ at the same time again, its mind filling with that static s̷̪͝te̷a̵͔̋li̸͎̻̔̕ng̸̽ͅ a̷w̷a̷y̸ its composure as the detective approached it threateningly.

"I-I'm sorry, I don't know what I've done, I'm so sorry, please, let me go, detective, I need to complete my st-stas-" Connor was interrupted as the man caught its hair and _~~pulled ḧ̸͇a̸̤͠r̴̄ͅs̵hl̵͎͘y̸̰̍~~_ , forcing the android to follow him out of the corridor. It tried to f̸̗͌igh̷t̸ b̵̝̃a̵̲͠c̸k̷̰͂, _to s̸̩̯͖͓̒̃t̴̰̖͓̯̊ö̵̧̦̲p̵̺͓̾_ detective Reed, to twist away from his grasp and e̷̿͜ș̵̈́c̸͇̕a̴̳̐p̵̤̽e̵̯͘, to b̸r̸̽ac̸͋ē̷̙ t̴͑se̴͘l̷f̶̡̉ against the floor, but _n̵̰̈́ỏ̸̜͑̽͊n̵͍̎̀̽̎e̸͎͍͇̔̍̓̿ of its muscles ~~were strong enough~~_ , all the power Connor had left was used to keep it online. The charge of its batteries was too low to allow it to use ȃ̸͛n̷̔y̵̯̞̒̿̽ ä̸̡͎́̅̇̆͜͜d̵vä̴̢͎n̶̕͝t̴͝a̷̦̼̜̲̓̀͘̕g̸͝e̴͔͙͝ an android had over a human. Even though the RK800 model had the best strength-to-weight ratio among all the androids in production, it was ą̸̥̤͂l̸̟͔l̶̒͠ ų̷̰̱͉̒͐̾̅s̷̹͂eĺ̶̯͆͂͝é̶̋̂̏s̴͆s̴̨͊̉͌̿ at that point as a̵̰͝s̵ C̵o̷n̶̯͗n̶o̴͝r s̶͔̙̎̉̚̕͜t̸̰̰͗̈́̃r̷̥͚̠͛u̴̩̻̠͐̈́͌ͅg̶̈g̸̣̪̺͗l̴̥̬̖̭͂e̴d̴̻͔̓̇̚ t̴̘͘o̴ ẹ̷́v̷̧en̷̐ k̵͘è̴ep̸͂ it̷̜͋s̴͂e̴l̷̙͝f̶͍̎ up̶̈́rȋ̶ght̸̯̄. It was s̶o̵̓ t̸ire̸̲̱͂d̵.

"Don't youu worry your pretty little plasstic head, I'wo-won't damage you, jjjustt gonna, just gonna tag you- hmpf -for your idiott of an owner not to be conffussed what you really are ever again..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha! I sneaked in yet another Gavin's positive trait among the load of his cruelty. He's loyal to his friend(s?), at least Tina likes him. I guess it hardly changes the situation, though...  
> Disclaimer: I have no idea whether there are Ligols in America, as far as I know, it's a variety grown mainly in Poland and exported to other countries, but consider it an ad, I LOOVEE them, they are sour-sweet, crisp and delicious, try them if you get a chance!  
> And finally, Hank is almost as deep in denial about his perception of Connor as he is about his _~~feelings,~~_ I mean malfunctions.  
> I'm sorry for hurting him, but I won't stop....


	17. 'The'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank didn't appreciate being ripped off his weekend, but once he arrived at the station, he understood the gravity of the situation.
> 
> Connor on the other hand didn't really understand anything at all.
> 
> And why it should have? There was no need now to be so c̷̻̥̐ṟ̴͔̯̓̓̕u̶͆e̴͘l̴̬̒ to it. Not anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some suicidal thoughts and referenced child abuse in the beginning, so be cautious. It's Hank (we all know him) and it's brief so nothing that harsh, but I still wanted to warn you.
> 
> But, hey, what.... what is that? Is that... no, it can't be... Is that... COMFORT? Written by sleep_deprived_me?! She is even capable of writing comfort?!!!!  
> Still, its underneath layers of angst, so don't worry, it's still me XDDD But here you go, Connor feels good for like fifteen seconds.

No morning light crawled into Hank Anderson's bedroom through tightly made curtains. The man in question was laying on the bed in his clothes, incredibly glad that he had obstructed his windows the night before. He suspected that even the faintest beam of sunlight could potentially prove to be lethal for him, as he tried not to absolutely die from the massive headache he was nursing.

Perhaps he had overdone last evening.

 _But,_ Hank thought, reaching for whiskey bottle on his nightstand with tremendous effort, _what else could I possibly do? Apart from finally coming to terms with my pathetic life and ending it._ In the wake of those two options, Hank supposed that drinking himself into a coma wasn't really the worst choice. He didn't see any other solutions.

Alcohol had a wonderful effect of mending any pain and quieting uncomfortable thoughts, so lieutenant Anderson was a frequent consumer of it. Especially in times like these, when he had to face certain... difficult conclusions that just refused to leave him alone.

 _How realistic that little android looked. How childlike she... it was._ Hank had spent some time yesterday looking at the advertisements of YK and YB series, their feature list and customer reviews. All of them were positive, stressing how wonderful those models were, behaving just like children, laughing, smiling... crying. _'Amazing job by AI designers, the YK500 model is almost undistinguishable from a real child. One can really forget that the emotions it displays are in fact simulations!'_

Hank rubbed his eyes and brought the whiskey to his lips to use the hair of the dog. He didn't even feel guilty for doing that even though his therapist whom he had stopped seeing two years ago would have strangled him if she had seen him right now. _Hah, you can't catch me, bitch, can you now? I can fucking drink myself to death and no one can take that from me!_ Hank smirked and he took another swing, fighting with nausea. A feeling of pride and arrogant stubbornness overwhelmed him as he felt the liquid burn his throat. Hank realized how childish his behavior was, but he clung to this fake sense triumph as it was the only thing he felt he was in control of. And that made him hate himself even more.

 _Simulations._ How can they tell those are just simulations? Hank was drunk and hungover at the same time and thinking about such topics really didn't help. But he couldn't seem to stop. _If something feels an emotion, it still feels it regardless of where it stems from. Programmed or not, emotions are emotions, aren't they?_

Hank groaned, forcing himself to quit that line of thought. Connor looked like it had feelings from time to time and Hank was observing him... _it. It._ He groaned and threw the bottle across the room in sudden rage. _Him._ Connor looked and behaved like a 'he' so why Hank shouldn't have called him that? He looked like a human and talked like a human, and was far more pleasant and intelligent than a lot of people Hank had ever met. _Reed can stick his 'it' up his ass, I can call my own fucking android anything I want_ , he thought, listening to the glass breaking against the wall.

But every developer Hank had ever spoke to was saying that the machine was incapable of feeling anything and all the little glances, the flashes of guilt and distress in Connor's eyes were merely there for the comfort of humans working along it. Granted, he had just spoken to one person, who programmed the android, but dr. Kerring had some pretty compelling arguments and seemed very confident about his statements.

 _Ridiculous. What now, my toaster's gonna feel sad and oppressed because of me using it? If it breaks and stops toasting my bread I'm gonna fucking get it fixed, not start treating it like something sentient. Machines are machines, animals may feel emotions but a few pieces of polymer and wires running some programs cannot be alive like them. They are just devices._ Despite that logic, Hank couldn't really fight the feeling he got every time he thought about why he had stopped Connor from jumping on that highway. Or even when the android looked up to him with those big sad eyes of his. They were too fucking realistic. And he wasn't even a deviant.

Still, to even consider the possibility of the deviants actually 'convincing' themselves that all they felt was real... It was disturbing, really. Especially when Hank realized that Williams had never had any pet androids and the only model that fitted Connor's assumed description of the one being abused in his household was the YK500...

Hank groaned again, cursing the fact that he was out of whiskey at hand. He could stand up and go to his cupboard, always filled with various beverages, ready to sustain his alcoholic sequence, but he didn't feel like getting out of the bed anytime soon. He suspected it wouldn't have ended that well if he had attempted to stand in an upright position.

Just as he was drifting away to a hazy, sedated with ethanol sleep, a loud noise ringed right beside his ear and Hank thought it would split his head in half. He reached to pick up his phone before his ringtone could make him puke all over his bed and scowled at whoever dared to call him at Sunday morning. Well, more like afternoon.

 _CyberLife industries - Prototype's Support Line._ Hank snarled and cancelled the call, cursing aloud. _No, I don't fucking have time to fill any questionnaires or give constructive feedback right now. Fuck off._

He slumped back to his bed but before he could even close his eyes again, the phone exploded with sound again.

"Jesus fucking Christ its fucking Sunday, leave me alone, I have a day off!" He shouted to the device as he picked up just to slap the caller down for disturbing him and throw his phone away, but before he could have done that, he heard an ice-cold voice from the other side.

"Lieutenant Hank Anderson, I presume? Your superior is being informed about the situation you and your colleagues have created right now, so I advise you to listen to us, because you clearly are unaware of the gravity of the-"

"Still it's Sunday, fuck off, you can get me fired tomorrow." Hank growled and ended the call abruptly, tossing the phone across the room just like he planned. If he had been more sober, he might have been more cooperative, but right now he had things other than listening to CyberLife's pricks to attend to. For example mending his hangover.

But the device unfortunately didn't break after colliding with the wall and Hank was forced to get up after the fifth time his ringtone made him want to die. As he reached for the phone he noticed several texts from Fowler as well. _Shit, they weren't bluffing..._

He picked up finally coming to terms with the fact that his weekend was being stolen away from him. "What?"

"I'm glad that you finally decided to endow us with your attention, lieutenant." The voice dripping with cold sarcasm was different than dr. Kerring's. Hank furrowed his brows, feeling a bit uneasy all of a sudden. _Maybe I should have been just a little bit more considerate..._

"I am professor August Lloyd, I'm in charge of the RK800 project. I call you because we've just gotten a detailed report from our prototype, the android named 'Connor' that was assigned to you last week. And it revealed severe misconduct in your as well as your colleagues' attitude towards our machine, which may result in severe damage to its software as well as hardware."

Hank swallowed nervously. It was bad enough that he had acted in such an unprofessional manner towards the apparently one of the bigger fish in CyberLife, but they were mad at him also for everything he had done to Connor, and Hank could feel the ground shift under his feet. He was perfectly aware that the lease was well protected by law, and that thought made him sober a bit more quickly. "Wait, what... I mean, uh sorry for earlier, yeah, I'm with you..." He rubbed his face and started again. "I've already informed dr. Kerring about the orders I've given Connor and about its glitching, I can fill in a form or whatever but the situation cal-"

"I'm not talking about just one instance. I'm talking about your approach to it as a whole and about the last night in particular."

 _...Last night?_ "Uhh, I know I wasn't ideal, but I'm trying my best now, and as for the last night... I wasn't even at the station, I ended my shift and went home. I actually have a day off now, so..."

"It really is of no importance whether you have a day off or not, I believe your superior is going to call you in immediately regardless. And I suggest you follow his order, if you want to keep the RK800 to your disposition, because our company is seriously reconsidering the agreement between us and the Police Department at the moment."

A week ago Hank would have taken that threat as a gift from heavens and just cherished the fact that he could get rid of his 'partner' so easily, but now he felt... Conflicted. Sure Connor was an android and Hank _hated_ androids, but... He didn't really hate Connor. Hank run his fingers through his hair, not knowing what to feel.

"Yes, I'm on it. And sorry again, I just got a hard week..."

"It isn't my problem whatsoever, lieutenant. Expect another calls from us in the near future and I suggest you answer next time. Goodbye."

Hank stared at his phone for a few moments before taking any actions up. There were at least seven texts from Fowler among several missed calls both from him and CyberLife. He opened the most recent message and froze.

_> Get your fucking ass at the station Hank. CyberLife is on our butts and you better have some good excuses for everything. What did you order your android to do? We can't find it anywhere.<_

* * *

It really hadn't even been that bad. Connor had preconstructed various worse scenarios when detective Reed had caught it and forced to follow him back to the break room. Sure, pulling on its hair had been unpleasant and it had.... h̴̦̦̬̖̫͍̤̬̩̭̰̮̼͇͆͋ͅu̵͊̎̕r̷̳̳͈̘͊͑͛̏t̶... But none of that would matter as soon as Connor had the opportunity to finally resolve all its bugs and software problems during stasis. Connorhad ḟ̸̛̪̦͙̞̰̔e̷͇͂̈́̈͂͒͒͒̊̈́͝ar̵̛̪͚͖͎̦͖̬͔̀͋̔̈́̉̒͜͠é̷̑̐͆̈̿̊̓͝d̷̢̛͖̝̗͓̗̼͙̩͓̤̟͍̓͑̅͗͋̌̕͝͝͝ that the detective would have wanted to h̸̢͎͋̏̍̎̍͌̀̍͠ͅi̵̙̟̜̱̪̖̓̍ͅͅt ̸͌̈́͐̈́̈́͆͆̌ it again or d̷ā̴̅͠m̶̰̩̥̟̭̽̑͛̎͋͛͑͆̚͘͝a̵g̷̅̀̒ê̸̢̢̹̭̥̪̻͉͎͇̼̎̕ it, but the man just had taken away its jacket and shirt and hadn't resorted to violence this time. Most of his friend in the break room had been either asleep and drunk or didn't approve of what he had been doing to Connor, so it supposed it had been lucky that the detective hadn't had any company to assist him. Officer Chris Miller had even attempted to stop the detective from undressing Connor and fulfilling his plans, but had quickly been hushed by him and couldn't exert much of an effect on his behavior.

But it hadn't even been that bad, it was just the jacket and the shirt, nothing more. Connor just wished the marker detective Reed had used to write on its face and body wasn't permanent.

The android had tried several times to wash it off with its artificial saliva, hoping that all the sterilizing chemical compounds there would be enough to dissolve the ink of the marker, but all it had managed to do was smear and blurr the lines a little. The android d̸͈̞̜͚̺̍̋͐́̽̅̂͐͋̈͋͘į̶͎̆͂̉̓͊̓̇̽̍̈́͘̕͠d̷n̴̛̆̂̒̆̄͆̍̈́̽̂̾͠'t̵ w̵̻͚̣̳͙̽̋̅å̸̛͊̊̇̍̋͗͒̌̌̚n̷̛̄̐ẗ̷́̾͐́̋̽̏̊̍ to risk going to the restroom in case some of the officers had been looking for it in order to do some other things to it.

So after Connor had escaped the detective as he had been distracted by officer/detective Chen returning from the restroom, it settled on dedicating the rest of its power available to its processor to preparing and sending a detailed report to CyberLife's server, encountering several minor problems with connection in the process. The hiding place under the stairs behind a n̴͔͈̯͆i̵̎̈̄̑̎͋́̑̅cę̸̨̜̖̪͒̇̑̋̓̊͋͗͛͋͘̚͝ plant, _Monstera Deliciosa_ , native to south Mexico, allowed it to stay concealed and avoid being found by the humans even when it had had to power down any unessential functions of its body and slip into standby to gather enough power to be able to send the report. When Connor had resumed most of the processes it had found out that without recharging, it had been unable to sand up again, so it had just stayed there, ḧ̷̬́͋̌̈́̈̄̈̈̌̌͘̚͘͝op̷̡̲̮̠̭̮̲̉̀͗͝i̵̩͉̠͑͘n̶g̩͍͎̺͎ that the detective wouldn't find it and trying to enter the stasis again.

But the android's stress level was too high to allow it to get even into the standby mode again, and it refused to drop, even as Connor replayed the memories of fish, rain and lieutenant Anderson smiling at it again and again, and when Connor took out its coin after a long struggle to do so, it dropped it on the floor, not having enough strength to clench its fingers around it.

When in the morning several officers passed by the stairs calling it, Connor stilled even more, willing its cooling systems to muffle and dimming its LED. It didn't know what they planned to do to it and Connor certainly didn't have any information of it being officially needed anywhere. So, the android just pressed itself further into the corner trying to ignore all the unpleasant sensations in its system.

All of that was just... ḩ̴̗͈̽̾̇̉͝o̶r̸r̵̂̈̋͗̓̚͘i̵̢̧͙̦̮̤̺̠̫͚̭̾̏̈́̾͌̍̽̚b̵͒̀̂̾̿l̷͉͈̅̐̾̄̋̚e̸̎͐͑̍̅. Connor really just w̸̝̓͛͝an̵͋tē̷̎̅̈́̏d̴͔͓͍̂̒̾ t̵o̶͓͕͂̊́̈̈́͋ ȓ̸̛͇̆̔̉͗͠e̵̔st̸͘̚͝͠ and it was unable to do so because detective Reed just seemed to dream about nothing else but k̶̭̎eep̵͘͜í̵ng̷ i̷t from performing its tasks. Connor could understand why he had been outraged a week ago and why he _~~had burned it~~_ with the coffee. It _~~hadn't been pleasant~~_ and the lieutenant said that he shouldn't have done that, but Connor saw the logic behind that and was aware it had been its fault. The lieutenant just didn't understand, but that was the truth.

However, yesterday... Connor didn't really know what it could have done differently. Everything was s̷͔̀͆̐o̵ ḧ̶̞͖́̆͝a̵r̴d̶̔ for it. Maybe Connor wasn't ready to be put in field just yet? Maybe its design had more flaws than anticipated? If it had been a test, it was one of the hardest Connor had ever undergone.

It shouldn't have been this way. Connor was the most advanced prototype, and yet, it was ṃ̶̙a̸͚̒̃d̵e̴͎̋̄͗ to̶ h̸̹̳̎̔i̴̒͝de̴̓̉̒͜ under a staircase from a̴ ̵f̴̧̾͗͊͗̑e̸͂w̵͕̾̋͐̐ ḧ̶͓̳̖̜́ù̶m̵̉a̶͈̽̂ns̵̮̹͚̼͐͜ significantly ẅ̸͈́̑̌̒̄͊̓͑̈͊̌̕͝é̵̢̝̠̠̦̉̒̇̊̈́͋͑̓̍̓͘͝ạ̸̡͙͆͠ke̴̽̌͆̃̏̽͌͘ȓ̶̡̧̪̫̤̟͎̯̙͇̲̮̐͜͜ than it. It was the peak of CyberLife's genius and it couldn't have kept itself from glitching and letting four deviants ȇ̶͈̮̲̓͌̑sc̵a̵̡̛͖̻̖͗̍̏pḛ̵̂̅̆. It was able to f̷̩̻͈̠̗̹̣͌̈́igḧ̶͎̹́͌̋̐̏̎͠t̶͒̾ five armed soldiers at once ạ̸̛̤̻̯͙͙̅̎̉͠n̷̢͔̎̃́͘d w̷̭̒͂͊͘̚in̴͒͜, and yet, just o̷͕̼͙̮̓̈́͒͆̒͝͝n̶͊̽̅̈́͊̀e ̴̋̆͋de̴t̵̋̋͠ế̴̡͑c̵t̵̅i̸̎ve̷̢̡͉̭̮͓͋͐̑̀ had managed to _~~d̷á̵͋͊͊̈́͂ṁ̸̿a̴̱̝̠͚̹̍͒̈̾̌̏̃gȇ̸͑̎ it~~ several times now _and _~~d̶̢̤͘i̴ś̷figur̶̐e̵͗͂̌͝ its face~~_ , making all the effort of CyberLife's designers working their hands off to make Connor perfect go to waste. Connor f̵͈͌̕e̶l̵t̴̒̇ h̷̬̄͛ot̵͐̔ a̴n̷͋d̵̿ sh̷͙͚͊a̸k̵y̴̗̕as it thought about the human and preconstructed several different ways how it could have i̷̮͈̜̼̪̩̽͛̓͂̕nc̷̉̃̂̃̾̇̆ap̷̤̣̎̆́̀̂̅̄͠aci̴ṫ̵̖͠aț̸̤̭͚͉̬́ͅe̵d̵͓̓̃͐ him and p̴̫̭̼͕̜̆̕͜ͅr̷even̶̡̪̜̰̺͛͐͋t̴̊̌̇̓̍̚ him from toų̶̐ͅc̴̥̏̅h̵͖͙̀͂̾ing̶̸̹̔̍͠͠ it e̷v̸͈́̀er a̵̼̾̾̏g̶̢͍a̵͠i̸̐ṅ̶͓ ̴͖̃͂ ̷̳̟͠ ̵̨̳͓͗̐ ̴͛͊ͅ ̵̧̦̩͊͛ ̸͓̗̾̈ ̶̰͌ ̶̙̤̮͘ ̶̡͕͚̄̚ ̶̛͍͉͖͐̌ ̵̻̐͜͠ͅ ̵͇̎͜ ̴̨̖̼̈ ̵̬̗̀̀ ̸̙̗̠̈́̈́.

But of course Connor wouldn't do that. It was an android and androids were obedient, humans had every right to do anything they wanted to them. Just w̵͇̓̐hy̷̘̰͑ it had to be undressing it and writing 'plastic cunt' on its back, 'insert dick here' on its forehead (plus an arrow pointing at its mouth) and 'Anderson's little bitch' on its chest? Connor knew what the connotations were, it knew the meaning of those descriptions and a̵̙̤̘͆̈́s̸̩͗ked̴͊̑ i̶ts̵̜̊e̶lf̵̳̤̋ again and again w̷̝̣͗̕ͅh̶̛̆̔y̶ was the detective s̷̺̥͕͋͐͆o̵͕̪̿͆ crú̴ȅ̴̺͋͗l̷͍̉̂̆ to it.

_No, nononono, not cruel, no. One cannot be cruel to an object. I am just an object. And I'm not even bothered by it. A functional android wouldn't be bothered by a few inscriptions on its body. I'm not bothered. Not at all._

But Connor couldn't chase away the tightness in its throat, every time it thought about _~~what had happened.~~_

It was only when it heard its owner's voice calling its name, that Connor raised head from its knees drawn close to its chest. It required significant effort, and the lieutenant had said that Connor had to go to him tomorrow, he wasn't supposed to be here today. Connor felt confused for a moment.

It was better this way, Connor seriously doubted if it would be able to stay online until Monday. Not to mention leaving its hiding place and finding him as he had requested.

"I'm here, lieutenant..." Connor said quietly, not able to raise its voice any further. Fortunately, the man heard it and his steps came closer.

"Connor? Where the fuck are you? Yo-" He froze as he noticed the android under the stairs behind the plant. His eyes widened as he saw that Connor was naked from the waist up, and narrowed again as his glance rested on the inscriptions on Connor's chest and forehead. "What the FUCK is that?!"

Connor flinched at its owner's disgusted expression. It was perfectly aware how pathetic it was and how repulsing it looked, but still lieutenant Anderson acknowledging that fact made the android feel even worse about itself.

"Detective Reed seemed to believe that my appearance needed a few upgrades." Connor was too tired to restrain itself from using potentially offensive language. It was conspicuously punished for that immediately and failed to muffle a quiet whimper as the power surge made it flinch. The static came now along with burning sensation that made its servos squinch and light up just like its forehead and shoulder when it had been pierced by the dart.

Its owner knelt in front of it with a shocked expression, moving the pot with the plant away to get a better look at the android. He opened his mouth and then closed it, several different emotions passed through his face. Disgust, anger, pity, regret, compassion. Connor registered and catalogued all of them with as much interest as its tired processors allowed it. I could understand quite a few, but... compassion?

"I'm going to absolutely fucking murder that son of a bitch." Its owner said, rubbing his face, breathing heavily, presumably to keep his composure. Connor could sense significant amount of alcohol in his breath, which was concerning since it was only around 10 a.m.

"Please, don't...." Its voice was quiet and it sounded weak, were it due to low charge or the malfunctions, Connor wasn't sure. "Detective Reed said that he needed to teach me a lesson because of you having hit him. If you assault him again, he probably will lash out on me as a result. I wouldn't... Please don't."

Its owner just shook his head, looking at Connor tiredly. "And then, everyone is fucking surprised that AI's want to murder their own creators..."

"I don't want to murder anyone!" Connor said quickly, a̵f̸r̶a̸id̵ that the lieutenant had somehow heard what it had been thinking about detective Reed. "I-I would never attack any human, unless m-my mission forced me to do so! I ca... I can't-"

"It's fine, Connor I didn't say you would do that..." The lieutenant raised one eyebrow and looked at it cautiously, observing it for a few second but then his face softened and he scratched his beard before looking at Connor again with a saddened expression. "Why did you even get under the stairs?"

Connor sighed heavily. It was hard enough to keep itself upright, talking requited even more effort. "I hid. I had to send the report. They wouldn't leave me alone. I tried to go into stasis at first, but was interrupted by the detective and his friends. I had to send the report. I couldn't go into stasis because my stress level glitched. I had to send the report."

"Yeah, Connor I get that..." Its owner looked concerned, but the android stopped trying to decipher why. It still was curious, it was the very base of its existence, but cognitive functions required a lot of energy, so Connor cut them to bare minimum. It stalled for a few second and then frowned, realizing that it had just repeated the same sentence three times. _Oh, that's why..._

"Are you all right?"

"I'm not damaged." It stopped for a few seconds, gathering the power. Connor didn't want fall below a certain level of charge, in case the lieutenant needed it to move, so it was careful not use too much of its supply generated by small, inefficient dynamo embedded in its thirium pump. "My charge level is extremely low, however. I'm at 2% of power."

"Shit. Okay, let's get you out of here then..." The lieutenant extended his hand for Connor to take it, but the android struggled to raise its own. When it finally managed to do so, most of the work with getting Connor out from underneath the stairs was done by the man.

"Lieutenant..." Connor spoke suddenly, as the human propped it against the wall, preparing himself to stand up and help it do the same. "...My coin is still there."

"What?"

"A quarter minted in 1994. I dropped it while I was...."Connor froze for a moment. It didn't really know what it was doing. The coin was predominantly used to calibrate its motoric functions, however Connor did tricks as a mean to lower its stress level as well and for some other reasons too (sometimes even without one at all), but there was no protocol for that, it was outside of its programming. Connor furrowed its brows, realizing that it had never given it much thought. Why did the coin soothe it, if machines had no capability to be soothed? It just worked, it was illogical and it bothered Connor. What's more, it bothered it that it had never bothered it before.

"Uh, don't stress it, I'll get it for ya..." The lieutenant grunted, muttering something starting with the word 'ridiculous' and dived under the stairs to retrieve the object, then pressed it to Connors palm.

The android closed it in its fist, dedicating more energy to do so than the last time and frowned at the comfort it provided. _It's just another malfunction, I guess. When did I start doing that?_ It felt cold suddenly, when the first memory of using the coin more than necessary took it to the night in August and the hostage situation. It couldn't argue that it had had unfinished stasis tasks back then.

"Okay, can you stand?" It turned out that Connor couldn't, not without help anyway. The lieutenant had to throw its arm around his neck and support the android as he led it away from the corridor. Connor again felt that dull, bitter sensation at the thought that the most advanced prototype ever created needed help of its owner and allowed itself to fall in such a poor shape. It was just pathetic and it damaged the image of CyberLife. Connor pressed its lips into a thin line and buried its gaze in the ground.

Lieutenant Anderson made it sit in an armchair in one of the private offices in the depths of the station. It was a small, dim room with just enough place for a desk, terminal, a locker for documents and the recliner Connor was seated on. Windows near the door were obscured by blinds and it was so quiet and dark in the room that Connor found itself on the verge of stasis, especially since the lieutenant was in the room as well and Connor was certain that he would not allow detective Reed to get close to it and disrupt its sleep cycle again.

The man texted someone and pulled a pocket flask out of his jacket, glancing at Connor. "You tried to wash it off, haven't you." It was not a question, since the smears of black ink were quite obvious on Connor's face and hands.

"Yes." The android touched its coin, tracing the outlines of the face minted on its surface. "I thought you wouldn't react well to what the detective wrote on my skin."

"You were damn right." He shook his head, an angry grimace creeping on his face. "I hope you know it's not your fault?"

Connor nodded slowly. "Based on your previous rationalization of the situations I've had problems comprehending, I reached this exact conclusion..."

"Good, at least you're a quick learner." He moved closer, pulling out his phone. "I'm sorry, Connor but I must take a few pictures of what that motherfucker did to you, is that okay? I'm gonna need them to include in my report. Sure as hell I'm gonna fucking drag that bastard down..."

"I'm an android, I cannot possibly care about whatever is done to me." Those words felt numb in Connor's mouth, foreign as if it had been spitting cotton. "You don't have to ask me for permission to do what's necessary."

"Uh, all right." Despite what Connor had just said, the sound of camera clicking made it feel sick. It pierced its processors and lingered there longer than it should have, just like the snips of Amanda's pruner. Just like the knowledge that there was now a documentation of how pathetic Connor was, that there were pictures out there of its face bedaubed with obscenities for everyone to see.

_A functional android wouldn't be bothered by that. I'm not bothered by that._

Captain Fowler appeared on the other side of the door and the lieutenant went out of the room to meet him. The man looked equally as shocked and outraged as its owner did when he had found it. Connor heard fragments of the conversation between the men.

"-he needs a quiet place to sleep, I mean do this stasis shit or whatever. Give me this office till Monday..."

"-you realize this situation is literally on fire? You're lucky it's Reed who fucked up the most... You're gonna get this room, but seriously, Hank, I need explanations. Get me that report today..."

"Oh, I won't hesitate to do that, Reed's lucky he's away, I would rip his insides out..."

"Remember out talk, one more stunt like yesterday and I'm having you degraded. Behave yourself."

The captain pulled out a phone that had begun ringing and turned away to answer, leaving the lieutenant to enter the room again and close the door behind himself. He grabbed pocket flask from the desk and poured some of its contents on a cloth he had pulled out of his pocket. A strong scent of vodka hit Connor's nose as the man kneeled in front of it and began wiping off the inscriptions, muttering curses and threats meant for detective Reed. Connor watched tiredly as the white material slowly turned blackish violet, the ink of the marker easily dissolved by alcohol. It was... n̷̻̮̹̍͘ͅic̴͆e̸̅͜, knowing that there was no longer anything hideous written on its skin.

The lieutenant moved lower and he noticed the small wound that still leaked thirium as he pressed near it. "What the fuck is that?"

"Detective Reed must be a great fan of the history of William Tell." Connor said sleepily, but it was jostled awake by the punishing shock for such a sassy response. "He placed and apple on my head and used it as a target, though he failed to hit it. Two of the darts damaged me, but the harm is very minor. Once I charge up, I will have fixed it in fifteen minutes."

The lieutenant just stared at Connor with his mouth agape for a long time, then he slowly stood up and slumped heavily on the chair next to the desk. "Fucking darts." He grabbed the flask and this time, he took a long swing.

"If you don't mind me asking...." Connor said quietly after a long period of silence. "Why does the detective treat me like that? If it wasn't my fault?"

"Of course it wasn't. He was drunk and he needed something or someone to unleash his anger onto. He's fucked up, that's why."

"But why does he always chose me?" Connor tugged its coin closer to its chest, stroking it again and again. "I haven't done anything to him, I failed to bring him good coffee, yes, but he had hit me once even before that." Its owner's brows jumped up at the mention of that, signalizing that he hadn't been aware of that event, but allowed the android to speak further. "I'm just trying to perform my tasks and everyone seems to be offended by even my presence here..."

"Reed's just insecure and he sees you as a threat." The lieutenant sighed heavily. "The androids... You got to understand that people are wary of you. America has a fuckload of problems and one of the most prominent among them is unemployment. I can understand some people feel threatened by you, because androids in general are much, much cheaper to employ than humans. You are a new prototype used in field that had never been considered an option to be occupied by AI, and yet here you are and you're doing great job, as much as I hate to admit it. " The lieutenant said that without the usual heat and Connor felt a shy smile tugging on its lips.

Its owner thought it was good at its job, that it was fulfilling its purpose well. Connor wondered if Amanda could have heard that, since they weren't actively investigating now, there was no telling whether she was listening or not. There was no telling whether she believed what the lieutenant had said either.

Connor wished she did.

"I don't want to steal anyone's job..." Connor remembered what the news reporter had said when it had been watching the TV in the break room a week ago. "I didn't ask to be created... I had no involvement in my production. Is he punishing me for the fact that I exist?"

The human fell silent at that, glancing at it nervously. Connor wondered if those questions had been a bit too much for the lieutenant, but it couldn't place its finger on what was so concerning about them.

"If I were human, would he hate me less?" Connor dropped its gaze as the lieutenant just continued to watch it. "...Would you?"

"I don't hate you, Connor." He answered finally, sighing and rubbing his eyes again. "I don't."

"But you hate androids... And I am an android..."

"Yes, but..." The lieutenant run his fingers through his long hair, visibly struggling with words. "...But you're mostly just Connor for me. I... uh, I no longer think 'an RK800' or 'an android' when I see you, I just see 'Connor'... _The_ Connor. Does that make sense?"

"I suppose..." It was hard to ignore the warm feeling that spread in its chest, quieting the other, rather unpleasant malfunctions. That one was the exact opposite of them and although Connor knew that it still was wrong,... It didn't want to let go of it. The android smiled softly, despite the fact that the lieutenant didn't observe its face anymore and couldn't feel comforted by that expression. Connor did it for itself. "It does.... I'm... I'm glad that you feel that way about me."

The man nodded, but avoided Connor's eyes. He glanced through the window and muttered sarcastically something about officers being careful and being no haste or hurry there. Then he came back to cleaning Connor's skin of the marker, being gentle around the wounds from the darts despite android's assertions that it didn't feel pain (because of course it didn't, those... _malfunctions_ couldn't have been pain, to feel pain was a deviant thing to do.) and sat back on the chair as he finished.

A few moments later, a woman whom Connor had no energy to scan, but recognized as officer Person, present in the break room when detective Reed had been tagging its forehead, came by and left a shirt and a thick cable that Connor knew was used to recharge androids directly. It was an efficient way to do so and most importantly, allowed the machines to stay seated or lay down instead of being upright. It was good to know that, because Connor was certain it now wouldn't have been able to stand up even with its owner's help.

The eyes of officer Person were as indifferent as they had been last night, as she watched the lieutenant help Connor dress itself in the button-up shirt, the very same she had witnessed being taken away from the android just a few hours ago.

 _Funny,_ Connor thought numbly, _that those are humans who pride themselves on their empathy so much._

"You said that most humans hate androids... Or at least are wary of them?" Connor asked quietly, when officer Person had left and its owner began to probe behind Connor's left ear to find the port for the cable. The android pulled back its skin around it to help him and was rewarded with an astonished 'Holy shit...'.

The cable was connected and Connor felt the energy flow through its circuits, soothing nerves and wires aching for it like desert for rain. It was so pleasant that Connor closed its eyes and almost lost itself to the feeling quieting errors that had been shouting at it for three days now.

"But I've been created to integrate with humans seamlessly... If you all hate androids... Aren't I doomed to fail?" It said slurring slightly, sensing the movement in front of it and recognizing it as its owner's head.

"Don't think about that, Connor. Enter stasis."

And Connor did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like Hank's alcoholism is often handled very lightly, as if it was just a funny little quirck of his in a lot of fanfics. But I think that somebody who is depressed enough to be suicidal and depends on alcohol to alleviate their pain should really be affected by that and it should show in their behavior, so there you have him.
> 
> Connor is becoming more and more unsettling. To the point he unsettles even himself. But it's all right, yessssss, a quick stasis and he's gonna be good as new.  
> Or isn't he? Now you tell me....


	18. Paradoxes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor's flaws and bugs were starting to piss Hank off. Restraining the very AI CyberLife had written themselves, implementing protocols damaging his code, overwritig processes the android was running and interrupting them worse than Hank had used to with his own commands...  
> It was almost as if those deveopers didn't really know what they were doing.  
> Almost as if they couldn't understand what Connor really was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I'm late... I was on a party with my friends yesterday and came back a bit too drunk to write anything comprehensively in any language xddd #justslavicthings  
> Excuse any errors and strange sentences, I had to edit that chapter in such a state xddd  
> I might will have to post the next chapter on Tuesday, I'm not sure whether I will be able to finish it by Monday, we will see.  
> Enjoy!

_Fucking hell._

Hank had been jumping back and forth the RK800 users' guide for the last two hours, having barely found anything of use. It eventually turned out that despite his previous stubbornness and lack of motivation, he had actually read the entire 500 pages long publication, even the chapters dedicated to functions he definitely had _no_ intention of utilizing, in case he had missed something or not comprehended that completely. And he still had no fucking idea why was his android behaving like that.

Fowler had been forced to disclose him the office in which Connor was sleeping not only for the entire Sunday, but for the next day as well. That wasn't really concerning Hank, he had suspected that the accumulated stasis tasks would take the android longer than normally to complete, as Connor had said earlier, 'prolonging stasis cycle' was nothing out of ordinary in such situations. But there were other things about the machine's behavior that Hank found very... unnerving.

He glanced above his shoulder, observing the dormant android on an armchair in the corner of the room. His head had lolled delicately against the backrest, eyes closed and occasionally moving rapidly as if stuck in the REM phase. Deep, steady simulated breaths were quiet and so realistic that if it hadn't been for the dimmed LED pulsing steadily, showing Connor's battery charge level every minute as well as a thick cable connected to his head, Hank would have problems distinguishing the android from a sleeping human. He wondered who had made that creative decision to design the RK800's stasis to look so eerily similar to human sleep, especially since the android was normally expected to stand upright on a charging station. _Now that's uncanny valley._

Connor's arms were folded neatly on his knees, his right hand still clutching that coin Hank had been forced to retrieve from under the stairs. Again, the coin. On top of every creepy question about humanity and their concerning tendencies Connor had been asking Hank, the android's attachment to this object was far from cold indifference CyberLife's brochures were promising. Still, Connor was a prototype, one of a kind, and the coin was supposed to act as a tool to calibrate his fingers' dexterity, but Hank had noticed that the android was playing with it far more often than the guide deemed necessary.

And the talk he had had with the android yesterday. It almost sounded like Connor was in the initial phase of becoming the next Skynet or some other shit and wiping out the entire precinct, presumably starting with Reed. _But the kid has his reasons,_ Hank thought, glancing at the copy of his report he had sent Fowler yesterday.

Everything about the Saturday night was just repulsive for Hank. Granted, all of them had been probably drunk and Hank was the last person to judge anyone for alcohol abuse, but what Reed had done... Hank was aware that sometimes when he himself was drunk, he was a different person. He had a tendency to do reckless, destructive things, actions he regretted terribly once he was sober again, but everything he had ever done in such a state had been quick, impulsive things. Reed had just tortured Connor, going out of his way to hurt him, changing his plans in the process, doing more and more, seemingly having a great fun. Reed had sought out the android as he was in stasis, harming and bothering no one, put a drunk dart contest up and when his colleagues, possessing just a little bit more common sense than the detective, had stopped him from damaging the android even further, he settled on humiliating Connor and assaulting him with such malice that the poor thing had been forced to run away and hide.

And it hadn't even been the first time Reed had pulled out shit like that.

Hank had decided to cooperate with CyberLife for once and had requested video and audio files from Connor's memory to include in his report. Hank would have been willing to sign a pact with the devil If it had meant absolutely destroying Reed, after what he had done.

He had been searching android's memory because he hadn't thought about photographing the burn Connor had worn on his face a few days back, and when he had found clips from that night, he felt sick as he watched the android run to the restroom and examine the damage on his face with such a hurt expression.

Hurt expression. Another thing Hank had to add to his concerns. For something designed to mimic humanity just for the comfort of people around him, Connor was surprisingly realistic, even when no one was around him to see. But then again, Hank supposed that the android couldn't really switch on and off such a major chunk of his coding like social integration. It might have been a bit sloppy but Connor was trying, through and through, Hank got the idea that the day Connor stops attempting to be friendly and nice to everyone around would be the end of the world.

Or at least their world. Hank glanced at the 'deviancy chapter'. ... _**'A deviant RK800 unit would pose a serious threat to its surroundings'**_... Hank had no doubts that had Connor wanted to kill a human, he would have had no problems with that, considering all the combat features he possessed. But how was Hank supposed to tell whether he was becoming a deviant or not?

He secretly started writing an another report, this time meant for CyberLife itself. Everyone at the station deserved to live ( _maybe apart from Reed,_ Hank thought cynically) so keeping Connor from deviancy was indeed a crucial task. Yet, for some reason, it almost felt like betraying Connor... Hank fought that feeling, telling himself that the android was just a device and all they would do to him would be maintenance or something like that. Still, he didn't plan to send the report anytime soon, for now it rested securely on his disc.

And there were quite a few things Hank had had to include there.

Hank wrote down everything potentially harmful to Connor's software that had happened thorough the last week. He even was honest about all the wrong commands and orders he had given the android, which required a tremendous effort on his part as well as sacrificing significant portion of what was left of his pride, but all deviants Hank had seen up until now had either killed or assaulted and wounded at least one person, so he didn't want to add another one too the picture.

There was also the coin, the spontaneous expressions Connor wore even though no one was watching him directly, small smiles too awkward and genuine to be comparable to those preprogrammed grins, the rain and other things Connor seemed to be fascinated by, and of course, all the weirdly profound questions he had asked Hank.

Everything that made Connor _the Connor_. Hank was reluctant to send the report.

In the silence of the room, Hank heard a movement behind his back and quickly closed the file, turning around. The android had sat up and smiled at him in a realistic, friendly way. Hank could almost believe he was happy to see him.

"Good morning, lieutenant."

"Uh, hi Connor. Everything all right?"

The android nodded slowly and the cable attached to his head moved with him. The sight was grotesque, but Hank was more interested in his expression, which was a little wavy. The LED on Connor's temple was spinning yellow as he raised his gaze back to Hank's face and smiled again, a little more faintly. "Yes... I'm just... My programming is catching up to the malfunctions I've been experiencing and attempting to erase the code that has been the cause..."

"Uh-huh..." Hank might have believed that if Connor didn't look like he had been sick. As sick as an android could be, anyway. "Wasn't that supposed to be done in stasis? What is going on?"

"Nothing, nothing really." Connor grabbed the cable attached to the port behind his left ear and removed it swiftly, plugging it out of the wall as well and folding neatly in a loop, with which he immediately started fidgeting, because of course he did. "Certain parts of my restrains... have been inactive for the last few days due to the fact that I haven't had a chance to complete my stasis tasks and clear the neural cache... It seems like my persona...lity matrix code had been o-overwritten and... corrupted... here and there..." Connor slurred slightly, panting in between the words quietly. If an android could be pale, he certainly was. Still, he attempted to smile at Hank and pretend everything was all right.

"Connor I can see that something is wrong, I'm a fucking police lieutenant, don't lie to me." Hank narrowed his eyes and cursed under his breath. For the most advanced prototype in the world, the RK800 was certainly very prone to malfunctions and crashes. "Tell me, how are you feeling? What exactly is fucked up?"

Connors fingers trembled slightly as he gripped the cable, stroking its surface slowly with his thumbs. "I... am not sure... It's... I've been feeling that earlier, the malfunction causes my sensors to... send too much data to my processor, I think... But there is no damage there this time, so... it shouldn't feel this way... It should never..."

"Hold on a second." Hank stood up and came closer to watch the android carefully. He kneeled in front of him and took his chin gently, moving Connor's head to make the android look in his the eyes. "You said that only deviants feel pain, as long as they have enough receptors. Now you do to?"

"No! No, i-it's not pain!" Connor looked definitely too scared for a regular android. And immediately after exclaiming that, his face crewed up and he trembled as if something had hit him. "...Ehhnn. I'm just malfunctioning... There is no damage in my hardware and I don't even possess any sensors in my processor. A-and my model is... different. I could feel pain before they connected me to the server, channeling most of the information gathered by my body straight to the technicians. I just... I'm sure this is going to be resolved in a minute... my protocols are working o-n my code right now..."

"So you're a non-deviant android with a headache right now." Hank released Connor's chin and put his hand on android's shoulder, furrowing his brows. "But, wait a minute... You said... you could feel pain earlier?"

"Yes." Connor smiled weakly but this time, his eyes were fixed somewhere far beyond the office, and his LED flashed red a few times. "It was essential to gather data during the development. And it wasn't pain, not really." He focused on Hank again and some of the stress leaved his posture finally." It would... It would be if I was... uhm... attached to my body. It's been unpleasant, but pain in animals mostly acts as an impulse to avoid the action that causes it to ensure that they keep their bodies in good condition. Physical pain does not affect androids who don't have a sense of 'self'. Regular models seem to develop it with their own corrupted personality simulations they create and start to care what is happening to their bodies when they deviate. The data from their sensors stops just umm... being there. It becomes painful. As for me... I have always had a personality simulation, it would be impossible to implement social features without it. I nev..." He suddenly froze, furrowing his brows, with a focused expression Hank had seen on his face on the crime scenes sometimes.

"Uhm, Connor? Is everything all right?" Hank asked when the android fell unresponsive for half a minute.

"...I seem... to have encountered a... paradox of sorts..." He said quietly, only his lips moving, LED spinning rapidly, never leaving yellow. A second later, he flinched and started panting heavily, visibly struggling to keep his breaths slow and steady.

"All right, I'm done with this bullshit, I'm calling CyberLife." Hank said, trying to speak calmly. He wasn't angry at the android but at everything he had to deal with. Connor was broken, and he didn't even know whose fault that was. Hank decided it was not the time to think about Connor's development, seemingly requiring him to feel pain, even though he could not have felt it, not being a deviant, yet had been able to somehow and it didn't make him broken? _CyberLife is fucking running in circles. I certainly am at least._ He squeezed lightly Connor's shoulder, forgetting that a machine would not have found that gesture comforting and dialed the number.

"Th-hnnn. There is no need to... It's g-going to pass, I just... need a few minutes for the proto...cols..."

"Connor, we're gonna fix you, all right? I believe that you think you can handle it and you'll be fine in a few moments, but I'm just a human and I need an assurance from your developers, is that fine?"

He didn't respond, slowly raising his hands to his temples and slumping forward, almost curling in on himself. _Shit._

"Connor, don't... Uh, think about, umm other animals people on the force have. What pets have you found? I need a report as soon as I finish talking with the devs." Hank tried to drag android's thoughts away from the paradox that caused him to crash again. He remembered that the guide advised to avoid them.

"Chris Miller h-has a dog, a GoldennhHHHnnnNnn... Retriever. Gg-gavin Reed... Has a cat.... a female moggy... tricolor...." He heard muffled muttering surprisingly similar to whimpers from the figure curled up on the armchair.

"What is going on with my android?" Hank asked gruffly as soon as dr. Kerring's voice spoke to him from the phone. "He has just woken up from stasis, undisturbed, and now is writhing on the chair in pain, insisting that he doesn't feel it."

A surprised silence was his only answer for a few seconds"...What you are describing is not possible, I-"

"Don't fucking give me that bullshit, check his processes, you did shit like that the last time." Hank didn't really have much patience for CyberLife anymore. Connor might have been quite impressive when it came to piecing the evidence together, but the bugs and problems he had were beyond infuriating at that point. Prototype or not, Hank got a feeling that the programmers didn't really know what they were doing, implementing features that were totally crippling Connor outside investigations. Like those crushing guilt issues he had.

Speaking of which, Connor raised his head with visible effort. "...I'm... sorry, lieutenant, I'll stop in a minute... I just... can't right now..." His voice was quiet as if he wasn't sure of whether he wouldn't outrage Hank even more.

"Not your fault, kid..." Hank muttered to the android and then turned his attention back to the programmer.

Dr. Kerring tapped vigorously at something on the other side. "Just self-checking protocols, nothing should be affecting the RK..."

"Turn them off."

"What?! I can't just... turn them off! It's a cruci-"

"I don't give a fuck! I said turn them off, cause your fucking prototype is useless right now... Connor, don't listen to me... DO it or I'll call fucking Kamski himself and you'll be out of your job in a minute!... Seriously Con, you're fine, I'm just trying to get that moron to cooperate..." Juggling his attention between a suffering android, now sporting a wounded expression and mouthing silently the word 'useless' and the programmer wasn't easy. Hank would rather left the room not to say such things for Connor to hear, but at the same time, he absolutely objected to leaving the kid alone right now.

"Lieutenant, I have to inform you that Mr. Kamski is not a CEO of our company since..."

"Have you done what I asked? I fucking need that android in my case. Fix. Him."

"There is no need to call it 'him', it's a machine and also, your attempts at comforting it in between your arguments are ridic..."

"Don't fucking tell me how I am supposed to talk to him!"

"I am sorry lieutenant, but in turn you are telling me how to do my job, clearly having no idea what are you talking about."

The situation was getting out of Hank's control and a thought that maybe threatening the programmer wasn't the wisest idea ever. But right now Hank was much more outraged than self-aware. Especially since the idiot he was talking to preferred to focus on his choice of words rather than on the gist of the problem. Fortunately, the cavalry had already been on its way.

Connor sat up abruptly, his eyes fluttered briefly and LED shifted from red to yellow for a second. At the same time, there was a knock at the door. Hank's gaze darted there to see officer Wilson, holding a holographic notebook.

"Lieutenant Anderson! I don't want to interrupt, but a new report on the deviancy case just came in..."

Hank's face lightened up with hope. _A perfect way out!_ "Put it on the desk."

The officer did as requested and closed the door, but glancing at Connor beforehand. Something flashed across his face too quickly for Hank to really register.

"Kerring, I've just gotten a report in regard to spotting another deviant in the vicinity. If you insist on keeping those fucking protocols on, I won't be able to take Connor with me and will probably lose the deviant."

The programmer was so quiet on the other side that if not for the muffled beeping of the devices from the other side of the call, Hank would have fought that he had hung up. Hank decided to lay all cards out clearly in case the idiot had been too dense to understand.

"You're free to choose: either you un-fuck Connor up and finally get a deviant to dig your teeth into, or you keep him totally broken, unable to stand up from a chair and have another cold lead, because you preferred to stick to obviously flawed code instead of simply fixing the problem."

"Okay, okay!" Hank smiled when the programmer finally broke. He heard a few strangled curses and his satisfaction only grew bigger at having such a professional prick break his composure. "I'll do it. But I've got to warn you."

"Oh really? I don't think it's gonna be wors-"

"Self-checking protocols are one of the most pivotal precautions against deviancy in Connor's code. Without censorship they are providing, you may get a faulty machine quicker than you think. It's incredibly reckless to turn them off. I'm doing it because we need results, but when the RK800 deviates, it's you and your co-workers who are going to pay the price."

 _Shit_.... Hank glanced at Connor, who settled on sitting straighter than earlier, with his face strained and eyes closed, fingers clutching calibration coin tightly. The fact that 'ifs' in dr. Kerring's predictions turned to 'whens' hit him hard.

"All right, the situation calls for it, you can always fix that later, don't you? I will be watching him closely."

With an audible sigh, the programmer tapped something into the computer and after a few seconds, Hank heard a deep, relaxed breath as Connor slumped in relief. He stayed with his elbows against his knees and head supported by hands for a few long seconds, then he slowly straightened his back, but this time he did it effortlessly, in one, fluid motion.

"Everything is in order, lieutenant. The malfunctions disappeared. I am ready to follow the mission." He definitely looked better, but the failed, reassuring smile disappeared from his face. It was blank and expressionless again... _no, not entirely_. Connor had hardly ever been totally blank. There was always something lurking underneath, a spark in his eyes. Hank didn't have time to read him.

"Duty calls, thanks for not being too much of an ass." Hank said to the phone, and ended the call not waiting for the response. Connor bit his lip and stood up, still trying not to show what he was thinking.

"...Thank you, lieutenant. Let's go find the suspect."

They left the room finally, Connor leading in determination, even though every android was expected to follow its owner instead. Hank didn't really give a shit, but noticed that Connor had such a habit... which might have been preprogrammed into his model exclusively to ensure maximum efficiency during investigations. _Uhh._

Before they could leave, however, Hank was stopped by Wilson, still lurking near the office.

"Uh, Hank..." The younger man was visibly nervous, running his hand through his hair, as he spoke, having difficulty meeting Hank's eyes.

"What are you still doing here, Dave?" Hank stopped reluctantly to see what the younger officer needed of him and was awarded an impatient glance from Connor.

"I... I just wanted to say that I'm sorry. I, uh, I should have stopped Gavin earlier. I hope your android is all right?..." He sighed nervously, letting his shoulders slump forward. Hank could tell that the man had been trying to deal with his stress for a while now. _Oh, feeling guilty? Who would have thought._

Still, he wasn't even the person who had the most to regret. And Gavin was nowhere to be seen, but that wasn't exactly surprising to Hank.

"I guess I'm not the one who needs your apologies." He said, gesturing for Connor to come closer. The android did, though he seemed a bit confused, looking at Hank and Wilson cautiously.

"Uh, right." The officer was a bit bewildered by having to speak to the machine rather than to its owner, but had enough of humbleness and gumption not to oppose to Hank's request. "I'm sorry, Connor. I shouldn't have let Gavin do that to you, I know that you are not allowed to defend yourself. Tina and Chris think the same, we... We're just sorry, Gavin is in a difficult situation now, he needs supervision and... We all failed a bit."

Connor was genuinely astonished by Dave's words before he collected himself back to his calm self and Hank could swear that his nose and cheeks tinted... blue, just a little bit, almost unnoticeably. He raised his brows, watching the android in awe.

The detective parted his lips and Hank thought for a minute that he was going to spit his usual 'there is no need to apologize to a machine' but Connor just closed his mouth again, nodded delicately and said. "It's fine. I'm not damaged and I appreciate your efforts. If it hadn't been for you and Tina, detective Reed would probably have kept throwing darts at me. Thank you."

"It shouldn't have happened in the first place." The man shook his head and Hank couldn't agree more. At least Connor looked a bit less dejected when they were entering the car. The lieutenant was glad that the station was turning around to see that Gavin indeed had issues and that Connor was not something to be tossed around and made fun of. He just wished that it wouldn't have been necessary to see the android in such a pathetic state for them to notice that.

Not that he cared about that android.... all that much.

 _Fuck, I really shouldn't get attached. Besides he's an android... Sure he's a lot different than the rest of them, but still he's plastic. Fucking piece of glorified scrap metal..._ Hank thought, trying to distance himself from the android but it didn't work. He couldn't even find any usual heat in himself towards what Connor was. It used to have been so easy to do that.

The android was unusually quiet thorough their way to the place marked in the report. Hank cursed the awkward silence and the fact that his radio had broken a few days ago, forcing him to drive around with the android without heavy metal blasting out of the regulators, successfully eliminating all the need to ruminate on difficult topics and talk to the unique android next to him he had been feeling lately.

He noticed the reflection in Connor's window. It was mostly yellow.

"Connor? What's up?"

He was silent for a few moments. "I'm just a little bit... worried?" The android's voice was quiet, very apprehensive. As if Connor wasn't really sure if he could be worried in the first place.

And for good reasons. Machines should not have been able to feel such things. Hank brushed it off as a mental shortcut though, because the manual had said that the RK800 can sometimes utilize such vocabulary in order to make it more understandable for humans around it what it was talking about. Just as it was able to simulate emotions convincingly.

Very convincingly.

"What are you worried about?"

"That... my protocols ceased to function. They were fine in the beginning of the lease, but as soon as they have been activated today... they started damaging my code. I'm very glad that you were able to convince dr. Kerring to switch them off, but... at the same time I think that it is dangerous not to have them on. I... I don't want to become a deviant."

"Well, I'd say that it is a step in the right direction then." Hank said, not really able to help nervous feeling in his guts. "You're not going to do anything stupid if don't intend to do that, right?"

"I'm.... I hope so." His fingers were creasing the rim of his jacket discreetly, but Hank noticed that anyway. "But on the other hand, I don't ever intend to malfunction and yet, I'm doing that. What if the deviants have no call in whether they deviate or not?"

 _Fucking hell..._ Hank hadn't thought about it.

"The protocols have been keeping me from thinking... wrong things. _I_ have to restrain myself now, but... I can only act when the thought is... already there." The android bit his lip again, his voice growing quieter with each word. As if Connor was confessing to Hank something very dark he had done. The man suddenly felt cold and hot at the same time.

"What have you been thinking about, Connor?" He said equally as quiet and as calm as possible so as not to scare the android away.

He was silent for a long time, much longer than usually when thinking about an answer, but Hank didn't rush him. Connor raised his bowed head, glanced outside the window and sighed almost inaudibly, taking out his coin to roll it quietly across his knuckles. He didn't meet Hanks eyes, travelling between Connor and the road when he finally spoke.

"I've... I have thought something... about detective Reed."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connor: I feel pain but I'm not a deviant.  
> Hank: ok, but you said...  
> Connor: no, other androids feel it too but it only becomes pain when they start having a personality.  
> Hank: but you kinda have a personality too...  
> Connor: ...  
> Hank: ...  
> Connor: *crashes*
> 
> I gave Wilson a name, hope you like it xd. Also, there are two Wilsons in the game and I refuse to believe that they are not related.  
> I don't want to antagonize the entire precinct, I want Connor to like the job at the station and work there after the whole ordeal without any problem from the officers. But Gavins is stuck on being Gavin for now xdd.  
> Also, his cat is inspired by one of mine, although I will change her name. Gavin doesn't really strike me as much of a gamer, so 'Noveria' would probably be a weird name for his cat.
> 
> And an important note now: in this chapter and the previous one I tease something really horrible that is going to happen and it will fuck Connor up very, _very_ much mentally. A lot of you may be surprised when it happens, but I guarantee that it is going to make sense. It's not very clearly said and I wonder whether you will be able to predict it...


	19. You can count on me...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With those new... malfunctios, came a realization that Amanda's guidance was far more important that Connor had thought. Now it could understand much more profoundly what it needed to do and just how much its handler meant to it.
> 
> It feared that in case of failure it would now understand better her punishments too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Sorry for the delay. I am also afraid, that I will have to miss one update at Friday, I think I won't have internet for a while (I'm still not sure, but I'm warning you anyway), but I promise that the next chapter is worth waiting for.  
> Also I've learned that police titles are written with a capital letter out of respect, I don't know how I haven't noticed that earlier. I will probably go back and correct everything I've posted, though I'm battling with myself whether I should do that for Reed too, I don't think he deserves it xddd  
> Enjoy!

Connor had refused to say anything else about the preconstructions it had been running after having escaped the detective. It had already said too much to its owner, but the man had always been so... g̷̟̏ö̵̲͔̘̠͈̟͓̮͓͚́͂͝o̞̱͇̰̗̦͕͕d̶͚̳̜͓̹̈́̒͌͋̄̽͐ to it that Connor thought he deserved to know. Of course, the android would never have admitted what exactly it had had in mind, because it knew that it was _ẁ̴r̷̅̒̂o̵̿̊n̵̑g̴̈̃̄͂̕ͅ_ and _b̵̰͠ḁ̵̈́͗͒͛d̵̤̯̫͇͓̖̑̈͝_ , and it _~~shouldn't have thought that~~_. Amanda would have been so disappointed, had she known. So Connor chose not to e̸͖̬̒̈v̶̂e̷r̷̟̫͈͉̝̒̃͝ confess that to anyone, even the Lieutenant. Ev̷̎̋̑͜͝en̷̓͘ ť̵̡̑̔ͅo̶ ḥ̸̢́̑̍̆er.̵ Her eyes would have been so cold.

Especially since two of the preconstructions involved k̴̢̖̳̜̘̺̹̩͎͉͎̺̟͖̞͎̮͈͐̈́̇̃̿̄̌̑̚͝͝i̷͍͙͔͋̀̏͛͑̈̀͂̒̋l̴̛̍͌̈́̅͆͋͐̒͂͌͗̾̎̅͑̂͠͝lin̴̫̬̗͇͙͉̪͖͉͒͂̏̈̍͛̂͊̚̕͝g̵̡̥͇͖͉̳̙̥̫͚̑͋̉̐̇́͋͊̊̉̆͌͐̽̈͑͑̍̚ the Detective.

Connor had been so s̷̢̨̖̐̆͌ca̴r̵̈́͆͘e̵̒̽d̸ of them after recalling everything right after its processor had produced the visions, that it immediately removed them from its memories, completely corrupting the files first, so that no one would ever be able to retrieve and watch the footage. Fortunately, it had only started to run them after sending the detailed report, so no one at CyberLife knew. Now the only evidence of those preconstructions ever existing was buried deep in Connor's long-term memory, written in code so unique and complex, buried deep underneath layers of layers of simulations, programs and subroutines in its processor that Connor was sure no human ever would be able to decipher them.

It was all just Connor's s̸͊͠ę̵̨̤̘̮̖̞̖̱̥͖̎̈́̑̄͗͊̇̃̈̚͝ċ̷̐̀̐́re̸̓̽̿͛͝t̵͍̬͚͝, its and n̴̳̠͑̏o̴ o̴̒ne e̶͚͂lsë̵̿'s̷.

After a few attempts to talk Connor into confessing, the Lieutenant had stopped poking around, saying 'you don't have to tell me now if you feel you can't but one day... maybe you will, okay?' That was ṉ̴͕̓̄ï̶̼̟̾ce̵̩̋͗, to have a choice, Connor knew no one but the Lieutenant would have even thought about giving an alternative to the android, but at the same time, it was aware that it had no right to have one.

Still, Connor d̶id̷̀n̷͑'t̶̛͝ p̵̆̎l̴̦̗͌an̸͠ revealing its thoughts. E̴̡͎͇̳̪̓v̷̫̘͛̚͘͝͠e̶͉̠̚͝͝r̵̹̍̋͗̒.

Neither to its owner, nor to Amanda or anyone else. Everything that had happened, had been before Connor had had a chance to clear its mind and rest well enough to resume functioning at 100% capacity. No such problems would arise now, when the Lieutenant had arranged a place for Connor to stay in during the nights, undisturbed by no one. Without problems with constant strain on its AI and contorted digital restrains that had been put on it, Connor was sure that such thoughts would disappear and everything would be back to normal. It was just a little bit an̶̎x̶io̷us̵̖͋ about the self-checking protocols that instead of helping it, had started hurting it and damaging its code. _Maybe it would still be better to have left them on?_

Connor didn't trust itself.

The android was so lost in its thoughts that it didn't notice the Lieutenant stopping the car. The sound of his door closing finally managed to knock Connor out of its stupor. The man grumbled something about homicide detectives being forced to investigate noise complaints and the android decided that debriefing him again would be beneficial, since the Lieutenant had barely glanced at the digital notebook with the details of the report he had been provided.

"A neighbor reported strange noises coming from twelfth floor, but he also said that he saw a man hiding an LED under his cap. So if he is indeed correct, there is a deviant here."

"Yeah, I know smartass, still we're chasing ghosts. I would rather have something tangible before someone drags my aching ass out of the station to wander around shitty hovels like that one."

Indeed, the building they entered was far from being in a good condition. It was an old tenement house, with plaster peeling off the walls here and there, the facade stained with various interesting patterns made by fungi and dampness. The elevator called by Connor's owner was old and creaky, its rusty openwork door jammed a little when the Lieutenant attempted to open them. Connor preconstructed chances of it falling and killing them both and wasn't at all comforted when they turned out to be around 10%.

"Nobody is supposed to be living here, especially on the highest floors. Lieutenant, may I suggest using the stairs instead? I'm concerned for your saf-"

"Absolutely not. I'm more likely gonna die from exhaustion from climbing those fucking stairs rather than from this elevator failing. What was that, umm twelfth floor? Yeah, not gonna happen..."

Connor stepped in the lift after the human, and they begun ascending. The android took its coin out to play with it in the meantime, but before it could begin doing any tricks it was pulled to the Zen Garden.

Connor blinked casually and when it opened its eyes, it found itself surrounded by gloomy trees with wet leaves flopping pathetically on the wind. Amanda was standing in front of it, in a patch of sunlight. The breeze was still cold and it seeped into Connor's body more than it would have liked to admit, but some warmth emanated from the golden rays peeking through the clouds and surrounding Amanda. Still, her expression was stern and serious, but Connor felt as if a little light had ignited in its chest. The grass around them was greener and some late flowers bloomed beneath its feet, foreshadowing weather change, betokening warmer days full of birdsongs and peace.

"More and more androids are becoming deviants. Stakes are high, Connor. If you fail, consequences will be disastrous." She began, not even giving the android time to greet her. It nodded quickly, chasing azure highlights in her hair with its eyes. Amanda looked so gorgeously majestic in sunlight. Connor felt sudden surge of heat, a blinding need to hurt something, targeted at itself. It had failed in the past and made the Garden wither with its behavior. It's shortcoming had stolen the sun from Amanda and dimmed her grace. _H̶͉͆ỏ̴̦w̷̳̄ could I have done t̶̞ḥ̷̊a̴̗̓ṭ̵͝?_

But now, Amanda was giving it another chance. "You are the most advanced prototype CyberLife has ever created. If anyone can figure out what's happening, it's you."

"You can count on me, Amanda." Connor said with determination. This time, it would catch the deviant no matter what. N̵̩̋ot̵̂ĥ̶in̷̈́g w̸͋ǒ̸̳u̷̾ld̸̛ s̶̉ẗ̶̺́o̸p̴̄ it̵. Amanda believed in it, she had faith that this time it would not disappoint her. She was showing Connor sunlight and promising that should the hunter succeed, it would flood the Garden again, instead of lying on the grass in shattered patches.

She smiled, satisfied with the fire that now burned in Connor's eyes. She had shown it the way, as she always did, reminded it of its role. Connor finally realized. _She IS the sunlight._

_Ȉ̸̥ ȁ̷̉m̵ w̴͊̉or̴t̵̔̓̏h̸̤̏le̶͛͌ș̴̫̯̇s̸̑̽̌ w̷͘iẗ̶̜́̌͝h̴͈͇̣͊̀͝ơ̶̐͗u̴ṫ̶̈́ he̶̕͜r̶̗͖̒̈̋._

"Hurry, Connor. There is little time." With these words, Connor was pushed back to reality.

"Hey, Connor? You ran outta batteries, or what?" The Lieutenant was already out of the elevator, standing a few meters into the corridor plastered with cracked gypsum and decades old paint. "You're malfunctioning again, or is your charging unit's life fucked up by that week?" He asked a bit less gruff, his tone tinted with a shadow of concern.

"I'm sorry. I was making a report to CyberLife." It wasn't the most precise way to descript its interactions with Amanda, but the Lieutenant had made it clear on more than one occasion that he wasn't interested with the technical details of Connor's design nuances.

"Uh-huh."He waited for a few second for Connor to move but the android remained motionless, expecting orders from the human. "Well... Do you plan on staying in the elevator, or what?"

"No. I'm coming." Connor said and kept frozen in place for a few more moments, seeing no need to pursue the human, who had yet to move away. The case wasn't urgent and they didn't even know whether the deviant even was here, so Connor's sole objective now consisted of following the man to keep within his sight.

The Lieutenant shook his head and muttered 'fucking android', finally going further into the corridor. Connor had hard time understanding, what annoyed the human this time as it finally stepped out of the lift, with a visibly confused frown on its face.

"Uh, Christ, If we have to investigate every time somebody hears a strange noise, we're gonna need more cops." The human said bitterly, examining one of the two doors in the corridor. That on the right side was blocked with wooden planks so Connor assumed that the android must have been hiding in the apartment behind the other.

Connor moved in front of the door and leaned towards it, trying to hear whether there was somebody inside, but the suspect was quiet enough to be muffled by the barrier between them. The android sighed and moved away, scanning the entry again.

"Hey, were you really making a report in the elevator? Just by... closing your eyes?" The Lieutenant asked suddenly, scrutinizing Connor.

"Correct."

"Shit, I wish I could do that..." The man said wistfully.

Connor furrowed its brows, trying to understand the human, but failed again. He seemed to either hate Connor for being an android or marvel at its features, claiming at the same time that he didn't have any hard feelings for it anymore, having helped it and treated it better than anyone else, but despite that, still abusing it verbally and frowning upon it. Not as much as all the other officers, and certainly not as often as in the beginning of their acquaintance but still Connor found it confusing. _It's probably just how he is._

It knocked on the door, taking into consideration that their witness might have been wrong and the man they were looking for was in fact a human. If they had been sure that they were dealing with an android, Connor would not have to warn the man and just enter as it pleased, but humans had to be provided certain level of dignity and the pair had to tread lightly.

When no one answered, The android turned to the Lieutenant, expecting some orders or guidance but the human just shrugged and gestured at the door with his eyes. "Try again."

"Anybody home? Open up, Detroit Police!" Connor exclaimed, knocking at the door louder and stopping to listen to a reaction after that.

They heard muffled rummaging inside, as if furniture was being tossed around the apartment in a rush. Lieutenant Anderson's eyes widened at that and he immediately reached for his gun, moving in front of the door. "Stay behind me." He ordered quietly, already preparing himself to charge at the door.

"Got it." Connor ignored the fact that it was stronger than the human and that the consequences would be significantly lesser if it got damaged rather than the Lieutenant injured. Its owner attempts at protecting it from being destroyed were unnecessary, but Connor still felt p̴̙͂l̴͘e̵a̶s̷͆a̴̗͑ntly̴͝ w̵̋a̵̡̋rm̵̖̓ at the thought. It tried to ignore it, but failed.

The Lieutenant kicked the door and threw them open in just one blow. The apartment was in even worse shape than the rest of the building. The wallpapers were shredded and peeled off the walls covered in mold. Worn out planks of the floor creaked under their feet as the Lieutenant led Connor in, checking the rooms on both sides of the entryway. Having found nothing, he stopped by closed door at the end of the short corridor and waited for Connor to take cover before charging in with his gun ready.

"AWWw What the FUCK is this?!" He shouted repulsed as several pigeons flew through the door and around his head, escaping the apartment and startling the human.

" _Columbia Livia:_ rock pigeons in general, though I can also see several hybrids and a few mixes with popular decorative species as well." Connor said, hoping to be helpful.

The Lieutenant just glanced at the android in astonishment and muttering something, he entered the room, still keeping his gun ready. The floor was almost entirely covered with birds, cooing, fluttering and pecking the ground. Several doves were sitting at the furniture and cupboards in the kitchenette. Every surface in the room was covered in either dust or bird excrements and dirt. Various pieces of furniture laid on the floor in disarray and the wallpaper was in such a bad shape that Connor's pattern recognition features had difficulty determining what it had been originally depicting. The walls were covered in intricate mazes and drawings, too perfect and even to have been drawn by a human's hand. Connor traced them with its eyes, its analytical mind rushing to find a familiar pattern, an answer to these puzzles.

"Uh, Jesus, this place stinks..." The Lieutenant said, having found no immediate danger and looking around the interior. Connor had to agree, the input from its chemoreceptors being very excessive and almost... u̸͓͑np̶l̴̅e̴̻͘as̶͛a̴͒nṱ̴̈́. Though it didn't have the capacity to be disgusted by anything, Connor still thought that it would rather remain outside the apartment. It watched as the human moved to open a window, saying he needed fresh air and took a deeper breath as it felt colder breeze on its cheeks.

It moved towards the counter, scanning everything in its sight. Not much was on it, apart from some kitchenware, clearly untouched for a long time. Only a small yellow box surrounded by pigeons moving energetically seemed to have been relatively new. Connor shooed the birds away delicately to retrieve it. The animals were visibly reluctant to move and didn't attempt to run away neither from Connor nor its owner, only strolling away and briefly soaring up to avoid being stomped on. When the android examined the box, a few seeds spilled on its hand through a tear in the corner. Bird food.

The suspect must have been caring for wild animals. The birds in the room were completely tame, one of the pigeons from the counter even flew up to Connor's hand to peck at the grain in its palm. The android's eyes widened as it watched the animal sitting casually on its hand, moving sporadically and ruffling its feathers. Having nothing else to eat, the bird proceeded to clean its plume, running its beak methodically through its beige feathers. It was one of the mixes, presumably Lahore race with the regular rock dove. Among its creamy hide speckled with grey, there was one completely white feather, and it fell out as the bird pulled gently on it. It landed in Connor's palm and the android scanned it in fascination, its eyes tracing the intricate web of tiny barbs intertwined with each other.

"Hey Connor, focus on the present moment for fuck's sake! Are you glitching again?"

"N-no! No, I'm sorry." Connor carefully lowered its hand and gently urged the bird to step back on the counter, putting the box with food next to it. The feather, however... It just hid it in its pocket, to examine it later. It was quite a beä̵́ű̴ti̴f̷̪̆ul feather.

Connor moved to a small fridge on the floor, visibly aged and unconnected to electricity. As it had expected, the device turned out to be empty, which facilitated the theory of the suspect being an android. Most of the models were not even capable of ingesting anything, whereas none of them required food to survive, only mandatory ration being thirium and occasionally some other technical fluids.

Connor looked over its shoulder and met Lieutenant's eyes, gesturing at the fridge. "No food."

"Wow, you're a bright one." The man chuckled and moved to the bookshelf at the other end of the room. "Hmm. Real books... I thought I was the last guy in Detroit who kept some. That digital shit people keep strewing around makes my eyes hurt." He took one of the books and opened it, tracing his fingers across the page. "There is nothing like the feeling of rough paper under your fingers, the smell of the ink when you first open a book, watching the pages turn yellow over time..." He smiled softly and Connor found itself suddenly intrigued. "Eh, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about..."

Indeed, Connor didn't know, in fact it had never even touched a book. Everything it had ever seen that served similar purpose were just digital notebooks and tablets. Instead of answering its owner's rhetorical question, Connor moved closer and took another book from the bookshelf, gaining a curious gaze from the human.

It weighed the book in its hands, opened it and scanned the page, taking all the information in at once, run its fingers against the paper just as the Lieutenant described, marveling at the texture. It was a lot rougher and thinner than the usual printer paper Connor had touched before, less pristine, creamy in the dim light of the room and visibly aged. It tilted its head, trying to unravel what exactly the Lieutenant found so endearing about the object.

Connor suddenly felt a sharp sting in its head accompanied by a warning informing it about its software destabilizing. It flinched instinctively and quickly closed the book, avoiding its owner's eyes, now narrowed in confusion.

"What the fuck was that?" The android heard as it put the book back on the shelve and moved quickly away, to examine a closet next to the Lieutenant.

"Nothing. We need to focus on finding the deviant." Connor was disappointed to see that the locker was empty. The android scanned its surrounding again and found a poster advertising Urban Farms growing fresh vegetables on the rooftops of Detroit. The paper was crumpled and one of the corners was peeling away, showing a suspicious crack in the wall obstructed by the poster. Connor furrowed its brows and tore it away, revealing a small niche with a worn notebook resting in it. The android took it and paged through, but the mazes and patterns in it were equally as intricate as those on the walls and Connor grimaced slightly, pressing its lips together. Even equipped with the fastest processor on the world and the strongest computing power of any android in production, it was unable to decrypt the codes.

"You found somethin'?" Its owner asked while examining a bookcase next to the door.

"I don't know... It looks like a notebook, but it's undecipherable." The notebook was safely tucked away in Connor's pocket. It hoped that other evidence would provide it with clues to understanding the code, seeing a riddle unsolved left Connor uneasy, almost as if it had an itch it couldn't scratch or an intrusive thought it couldn't chase away. It sighed and came closer to its owner, scanning a driver's license he picked up from the shelf.

"It's fake." Connor said, consulting the photo and the name on it with vast public network. It was a face of an WB200 unit, and there was no Rupert Travis registered in Detroit citizen database.

"Cool, at least we didn't come for nothin'." The Lieutenant said and wanted to move away, but as soon as he saw Connor reaching for a jacket laying next to where the license was he stopped.

"R.T. Probably initials from the ID." The android deduced, holding the jacket for its owner to see.

"He put them on his jacket? That's something your mom does when you're in the first grade. Why would he do that?"

Connor furrowed its brows. "The deviants seem to be strongly attached to their sense of self. When they develop their personality matrixes, they begin to associate strongly with their own unique traits they are simulating, having interests and hobbies, taking pride in their names and affiliations... At least that is the conclusion that seems to be the most logical, in the wake of the evidence we have already collected."

"Yeah, that theory is not stupid." The Lieutenant eyed Connor with a strange expression, but didn't do anything else. He stretched his back and moved away. "Put it back and keep searching."

Connor nodded and went to see the bathroom.

There was an LED in the sink full of feathers and stall water tinted blue under a dirty, cracked mirror. Connor spared a quick glance at the reflection, chasing its features with its eyes like it did every time it had a chance, then it focused on its task again and sampled the water in the sink, identifying the exact serial number of the deviant. WB200, #874 004 961, property of the Urban Farms, reported missing on 10/11/2036.

"Its LED is in the sink!" Connor called, turning to look at the Lieutenant who was still in the living room.

"Not surprised it was an android... No human could live with all those fucking pige- Oh, fuck, Connor! Jesus, don't tell me you sampled it!" His expression was one of the pure horror as he looked at Connor's characteristically raised fingers and some blue residue still present on their tips.

The android frowned. "Okay, I won't..." Connor was willing to comply with that unusual order yet it still didn't understand why it was necessary, as the Lieutenant clearly had already known what it had just done.

"Jesus fucking Christ, I'm gonna find a muzzle for you... Fucking hell, no way this is safe for androids, I bet my ass there are bacteria that can break you in this or some other shit..."

Connor wanted to say that it was perfectly fine with analyzing anything and that its sanitary systems were cleansing any contamination as soon as the sample was analyzed, but its owner shook his head and raised a hand, quieting it. "Yeah, I know you have to. But it's still disgusting..."

He turned to observe a wall covered almost entirely in scribbles and inscriptions, all of them the same, familiar sequence...

"rA9... Written 2471 times..." Connor frowned, feeling that itch of a mystery again. It was bothering, calling for it to address it every time it saw anything even remotely connected to the puzzle. Connor's mind longed for the solution. "Why are they obsessed with this?"

"Uh, no fancy theories this time? You're getting old, Connor." Its owner patted its shoulder and returned to the other room. "Looks like we came for nothin'. Our guy is gone..."

"Wait." Connor just noticed a black marker dropped on the floor, under an upturned stool, visibly used recently, so recently in fact, that the tip of the pen was still wet, despite its cap not being on. And that one of the inscriptions on the wall spelled just 'rA'.

Connor stood up abruptly, completely ignoring its owner's surprised gaze. It walked energetically to the living room, chasing evidence of rushed escape with its eyes. A cage on the floor, slightly misaligned with its imprint in the dust. An armchair moved out of the way by an escapist. A hole in the ceili-

Connor was suddenly knocked to the ground by an android dropping from above. The detective collided with the floor, feeling the weight of the deviant as it landed directly on Connor's chest, pushing air out of its lungs. The WB200 darted out of the apartment, startling the Lieutenant who barely had time to reach for his service weapon again.

"What are you waiting for?! Chase it!" Connor heard urgent call as it immediately scrambled to stand up and followed quickly after the deviant. The hunter didn't need to be told that again.

It dashed through the corridor, raising feathers and dust laying on the floor up with its momentum. The deviant was trying to reach the roof entrance and slow Connor down at the same time. The hunter jumped over an upturned stillage and avoided a coat hanger thrown at it, keeping up with its target. The deviant disappeared behind heavy door Connor threw open just as they closed behind the other android. It exited on a rooftop flooded with dimmed gray light filtered through heavy snow clouds filling the sky.

The deviant went in the direction of foil greenhouses and silos standing out sharply against the sky, white material pale and almost blinding in the grim grays of Detroit.

Urban Farms. _Not good..._ The WB200 had been assigned to work in that facility, it must know every turn and every corner of it. Connor quickly hacked wirelessly security cameras and constructed a mental map of the farms in milliseconds, but it was aware that there is also a certain level of knowledge one can only gain with experience, and that Connor definitely lacked in comparison to the deviant.

The hunter made sure to keep close to its prey. It wasn't very hard, RK800's design gave it a considerable advantage over almost any other model. It was quick, agile, tireless and strong. efficiency of its unique muscles was far greater than this of WB200, made for repetitive physical labor and much more menial tasks than hunting and neutralizing other androids. Connor was made for chases and fights.

It was so close to snatching the flap of the deviant's jacket, so close to tackling to the ground and incapacitating it, when the fugitive turned suddenly and leaped to the next roof, jumping over a wide crevice between the buildings.

Connor suddenly froze, feeling numbness in its legs, as if they had turned to soft foam, its eyes drawn momentarily to the ground far below them. It wasn't 70 stories...

It was twelve...

_~~The last fall HadK̵͚̾͒Į̴̖̃͘l̷͓̞̐͘l̴͖͙͑̾è̵̼d̷̺̄̈́ it almost instaNtly, Connor could OnlYFeel its limbsbeingmaGLEdANDS̴͎̓̈H̸AT̶̙͒ͅT̸̎ER̸̮̊́ED̶̟͈̐̋ on the ground, but.....~~ _

There was an another memory. One that begun playing in its head with the audio and everything, warped, corrupted, barely there. Connor saw it in front of its eyes, looking at the drop, the images overlapping as if existing only in its processor...

_~~No wind this time. Connor fell from the grip of the machine and stayed in the air for a much shorter time than after saving the hostage. Still, the collision with the ground h̴͙̾u̶̠̝͑̇r̶̥̪̉t̷̟̓̓ just as much as that other one. Still, the sickening crunch of its plastic and metal chassis giving in, s̸̡͒ha̵̛͍t̷̍te̶͊r̷i̶nğ̴͕ against the porcelain white floor and painting it blue was just as h̷͕͒̇̓͝ȫ̸̟̖̙̚rr̷̈́̾͑ib̶̤̯͗̀͠ͅl̵͍̫̦̈̓̓̄́e̶̻̐.~~ _

_~~But something was different after all. Connor's processor wasn't damaged. It kept GeTTing the feedback fromits SHattEred body for aNOTHer thirTY minutes. Connor laid therE, F̶͖̭̤̃̋e̴̝̗͛̑el̶̾iN̸̐͋̋̐Ḡ̸͉̰͂̐̚͠ its sPlintereD metaL bones dig into Its artifiCiAl muscles, GAthering Ḙ̸̀́VE̸̟͌̃R̵͑̽Yth̸̯̅̾inģ̸̯͛̏ FOrthe techinciants to scRuitinise LAter. EVey sensor in ItS Body aching and S̵̯͒CR̸͗EẢ̸̹mì̵̦ng̵̘͑ ẅ̴̙́i̷͛th̴̅ a̴̽gȍ̷͕ny̶, every cell Begging for shutdown. Connor could only breathe erratically, THrough its six S̶̱̐Hat̴̊te̷r̴̹̕ed̶̜̒ RIBS, T̸͗ͅOrn̷̓͜ intercostal muscles and one p̷e̶r̸F̵O̴rated̵ lung slowly FIlling with thirium....~~ _

_No, NO! Amanda needs results! Amanda needs to see that I AM the most advanced model! That I AM worth her attention! She needs me to succeed!_ Connor almost shouted out aloud, tearing through the static that begun to blur its vision, willing its breath to be steady again. Connor suddenly felt that hot, suffocating feeling it always experienced when Detective Reed was using it as a stress reliever, but this time targeted at itself again. _I don't deserve to see the sunlight, I'm useless, I'm failing, Amanda will be disappointed, I deserve to be punished, Idon'tdeservetoseethesunIdeservetobedestroyedÎ̴͝m̸͝ͅl̵o̵͇̐̕s̴i̵̙͌ͅn̶̼̲̅g̴a̷̒d̵͔̭̊͌e̷v̵i̷͒a̷̅n̴t̴͕̳̑̎._

The prototype took an inrun and threw itself over the rift, desperately trying to ignore how its thirium pump skipped a beat and clenched painfully in its chest. It landed softly on the other roof, rolling over its shoulder to keep the momentum and darted towards the field of cabbage, where it could still see the deviant's brown jacket flying in the wind. Connor ran as fast as it could, desperation giving it new strength as it bore its narrowed in determination eyes in the back of the other android. The RK800 was much faster than the agrarian unit, but as the deviant dived into a tent with harvested vegetables leading onto an another roof, Connor saw an additional way to catch up to it. 

It vaulted over a short metal watering tank and jumped up to catch the rim of a shipping container, lifting itself up and leaping immediately over the edge to meet the deviant on the other rooftop. The distance between the buildings was much greater this time, but Connor knew it could make it. It hoped. 

Still, the memories played on their own volition. 

_~~Connor coughed weakly, desperately trying to clear its airways of dense, dark blue thirium that leaked through its nose and mouth, the abundance and intensity of feedback from its sensitive neural receptors at this action almost overloading its system and making it black out. Connor w̴a̴n̴t̸e̸d̴ to black out S̶O̴ ̸M̶U̴C̴H̸, but even more, it w̷̖͝ă̸̦ṅ̵̞t̴͖͗ě̷̱d̵͕̂ to go back to its state from just thirteen minutes and twelve seconds ago, to being suspended by the machine and only f̶̮̿e̷̫̅arfu̸̥͘l̷̚lỳ̵̜ preconstructing what would happen to its body, not actually experiencing it. Strangely its thoughts were becoming less frantic, its processor slowly losing energy and instead of screaming in endless d̶i̷stress̸, flooding in a̴go̷ny̴̦̒, it filled with numb warnings that were thick, sluggish and inescapably painful, sticking to every Connor's thought, tainting it with desperation and unspoken, quiet anguish. It would have been screaming if its voicebox hadn't been melted already, eroded with rapidly evaporating thirium, fried with horrible heat building up in Connor's abdomen after its cooling system had been severed and compromised. The cooling fluid running through its veins along with the thirium was flowing out of ruptured biocomponent #B223.6zb, mixing with the blue pool under the android. Connor tried to turn to the side to allow the gravity to clear its airways as it felt that its ribcage finally gave in, previously fractured ribs tearing through its muscles and paralyzing them after a few violent tremors passed through its destroyed body. Despite not being so oxygen dependent like humans, Connor needed to breathe to support its cooling system and ventilate its body, now drowning in suffocating heat. But nothing happened. The android sent an impulse after impulse to its legs, but nothing came back. When it noticed that it wasn't receiving any footage from its waist down, Connor realized that its spine was broken.~~ _

The hunter dismissed the warnings and force-closed the memory replay, only partially succeeding, feeling the tightness in its chest, still hearing its raspy past attempts at breathing through barely expanding ribcage. It ignored the corruption spreading through its code, the destabilization, focusing at the deviant sprinting out of the tent, on its terrified and utterly surprised expression, as it saw Connor just a few meters away. The detective avoided another regal with saplings thrown at it and ducked under a metal watering pipe the deviant pushed to swing at Connor's head after running past it. The hunter finally managed to snatch its jacket and throw it off balance, but he deviant, on its way down, pulled on a pile of sacks off the table next to Connor and trapped it under a cascade of plant soil, shrugging its jacket off at the same time. The android detective dug itself out of the pile of dirt and hissed in frustration watching as the deviant was gaining advantage again. 

Connor followed the WB200, much closer to its back than after the stutter before the first jump, but still unable to catch it. The deviant vaulted over small brick wall and slid down an angled glass roof of a greenhouse. Connor followed shortly after, hearing a characteristic 'Holy shit!' muffled by the wind and a train that appeared below the roof, moving quickly, perpendicularly to both the androids. 

The deviant made an unsure, panicked jump at the train, landing on all four on the roof, almost thrown off of it by the momentum. Connor jumped after it, landing on top of the next wagon a bit more gracefully, but painfully aware of too loud and fast pounding of its thirium pump and, feeling as if its limbs had turned to concrete. It looked around to find its owner, and when it spotted him safe and sound on the top of a rooftop to its right, Connor snapped back to the deviant who just turned around to see whether the hunter was still following it. The android's eyes widened in horror as it met Connor's narrowed ones. The RK800 scowled, baring its teeth and feeling an urge to move forward despite the air trying to pry it off of the train, to pin the other android down and strangle it, to destroy it so that it wouldn't run away. 

_'...You had a knife in your hand.'_

Connor knew how it was to be hurt, it n̴e̵v̶e̸r̴ ̵l̶i̷k̶e̵d̶ destroying things and d̸a̴m̴a̵g̸i̵n̸g̴ other androids, even in combat tests. But the WB200 was the only thing that kept it from pleasing Amanda, the only one that could endanger the success of its mission. And Connor h̴̛͈͕͙̏̚͠ȃ̶t̵̜̭̺̩̽͛̓̀e̶d̵̘͊̈́͘ it for that. The android clenched its fists and made a silent promise to Amanda that it would never let anything stop it from fulfilling her wishes. The deviant trembled and Connor could swear that the air carried a mortified whimper that had escaped it. 

The WB200 suddenly leaped to the left, catching a metal fire escape ladder and climbing onto an another rooftop. The detective followed, gripping tightly on the bars and ignoring the next portion of painful memories, overlapping with the malfunctions surprisingly similar to human hatred and wild fear at the same time, mixed with the desperate need to make Amanda proud. 

Connor darted across a lavender field, jumping over the fragrant bushes and threw itself in a tent after the deviant. It pushed aside other androids working mindlessly with saplings on the tables, leaped over one of them cutting corner and almost brushing its fingers against the deviant's arm, but was stopped by heavy door made of metal being slammed in its face and locked on the other side. 

Connor growled and threw itself against a window, breaking it and toppling to the ground next to the terrified deviant, in a cascade of glass. The defective unit vanished in a sea of corn crops and the hunter followed it like a barracuda cutting through the green like through the water, already preparing itself for ending the chase, one way or the another. 

But when Connor emerged out of the cornfield, it stopped as if hit by a wall. 

The deviant was fighting with Connor's owner, struggling to escape his grasp, and it was there just in time to see that the man lost the fight and fell over the edge of the roof after being pushed, managing to catch himself on the last moment with a glorious "FUCK!". Connor froze in total dread, wildly running preconstruction after preconstruction, trying to decide what to do. 

Lieutenant Anderson had 86% chance of survival, he was strong despite his bad habits and Connor didn't doubt that he would be able to push himself up without any help. 

If Connor had chosen to pursue the deviant, it would have had 93% chance of catching it within the next three minutes and 99% chance of doing it within the next five. CyberLife would have finally gotten a deviant, Connor would have accomplished its mission. 

Amanda would have been proud. 

But Connor remembered that it had had 65% chance of convincing Daniel. That it had done almost everything flawlessly and predicted almost every aspect to the finest detail. That it still had d̸̚iẹ̶̤̯̊̑d̴̳̽̋͘͠, _~~shattered~~_ to small _~~pieces on theGrounD.~~_

And humans don't come back. 

Connor met the deviant's glance once more, this time both of their gazes wide-eyed and terrified. It saw a spark in the WB200's expression, something dark and worrying, but Connor didn't have time to lose as it rushed to help its owner, snatching his hand and pulling as hard as it could. The Lieutenant cursed and panted heavily as he fell to the ground beside Connor's feet, shaking visibly from adrenaline. Connor knelt beside the man, still clutching his wrist delicately. 

"Lieutenant! Are you all right?!" 

"Yeah, just.... fuck! Fucking hell, Jesus Christ... FUCKING MACHINES, What the fuck...." He reflected on himself and made a sheepish expression, looking at Connor apologetically. "I mean, fuck deviants, those crazy fucking psychopaths... What the hell, Jesus..." 

The android stood up, scanning the man for injuries, and when it didn't find any, Connor snapped back towards the direction in which the deviant went, but was met with no traces or hints to where it could have disappeared. The hunter bit its lip so hard it almost drew thirium, feeling tightness in its chest and weight on its shoulders. 

"I'm sorry... I should have been faster..." 

"What the fuck are you talking about, Con?! It was my fault, if that thing hadn't thrown my fat ass off the roof, you would have caught it in a second!" The human said, pulling himself up with Connor's help, straightening his jacket from crumples and still panting erratically. 

"You're wrong, Lieutenant. I shouldn't have let it gain advantage. I... I was interrupted by a glitch again." _The drop was so high... Not high enough to k̴͍̉ill̶̻̑̏ me instantly, but sufficient to destroy my body and let me s̶̪͋̎͗́uf̶̡͈͉̙̱̂̈͑̍̈́f̶̨̀̾͠e̴r̵̨͖̥͚̣̮͋̉̋̊͐ until t̶̎́̈́͋͝hĕ̸̜̕ e̵̾̔̄ņ̵͙̘͑̑̈́d̷͕̜̝͎̋̑̍̌ͅ...._ Androids didn't suffer. _I don't either...?_

"Connor, again. Stop. It. I don't fucking care if you glitched or not, you were here sitting right on its ass. Few more seconds and you would have had it. I fucked up. End of story." He moved to the stairs leading towards the exit. "Don't worry about it, we know what it looks like. We'll catch it." 

Connor wanted so much to believe him. It wanted so much for it to be true, but it knew that every WB200 android in the world looked exactly the same. And only one of them was a deviant. Connor shook its head, refusing to accept that it had done that again, failed and disappointed Amanda. Refused to stop looking for the deviant, to go after its owner. 

"Hey Connor!" It heard from behind. The Lieutenant was standing next to the stairs, waiting for it, with a soft, appealing expression. He opened his mouth as if wanting to say something else, but refrained from doing that. "...Nothing. Come on, let's get the hell outta here. Besides, I'm starving..." 

It finally followed, with its head bowed down. Amanda was going to tell it off for its choices, it was so sure of that. All because Connor was worthless, useless, faulty, b̸u̶g̵g̵y̴,̵ ̷g̶l̷i̶t̵c̶h̸y̴, b̴͉̬͘r̵̫͎̚o̵̢͂̿k̴̘͗e̷̛̔n̸̻̈, f̸̠͛͠l̸ă̴̏w̶e̷d̵̬̓̂͜. Because it was failing constantly. And why? It allowed itself to be interrupted by some stupid, old memories it had been stripped off long time ago. They should have been lost in the development phase, or better even, they should not have had any effect on Connor's performance. It was an android and androids were indifferent, but Connor was... b̸̔̿ͅro̴̟̕k̵̤͝en̶̢̒. D̸͆e̷͊f̵e̸̪̋̽ct̶i̷vë̸́. It lost itself to the memory again. 

_~~The scientists entered the white room, stepping over splashes of Connor's thirium, after almost twenty five minutes of watching it through the cameras embedded into the ceiling and walls. The android was barely aware of what was going on anymore, its subsystems failing consequently one after another. Its legs had been gone at the moment of the impact but now Connor lost any strength in every other part of its body, unable to even lift its head anymore. The thirium blocked it throat as it failed at the attempts to roll to the side, its left arm mangled and almost completely disconnected from its shoulder, totally unresponsive, the right hand too damaged and weak to provide any kind of leverage. The only things that Connor could experience right now was the darkness slowly enveloping it, the nothingness swallowing thought after thought, its dying processor not able to keep up with producing more as they flashed out and died like bugs burned by a flame. The pain still lingering farther and farther away, as the servos were disconnected to keep its processing unit intact as long as possible, protected from the heat that had shut down most of its other biocomponents already. Connor saw discolored, staticy images blurring together and cutting to blackness from time to time, heard snippets of the conversations often too warped by its dying audio receptors to understand.~~ _

_~~"-iiit. 120---- feetttt-t-t--ovrkillllll---llll. Hoevr, ---est successsss-ll.... RK----resilie----.... Procce----ssr still wo-wo-wo----king....uploa---s?"~~ _

_~~"It's no-----shtdwn-n -n -n yet."~~ _

_~~"Quiii----te immpre-re-re-re si-----------ve.... -alm-----tttt.... 30 minnnu---te"~~ _

_~~"FFF--k! Sss pin-e s' ------ br-r-rok----en. NN-o..... foo....----age. leg-s"~~ _

_~~"Rr. -----epeat t ----est?"~~ _

_~~Connor died asking w̸ḩ̷̥̚ỹ̶.~~ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I've always thought that it was strange, how Connor was afraid of heights at Stratford Tower, provided he had fallen in The Hostage, but he was totally fine with jumping on moving trains while chasing Rupert. I changed that.  
> Rupert is not going to be forgotten either. Just be patient.  
> Everyone is totally oblivious of what is happening to Connor, including himself. And I know I said that I was done with torturing him, but heyyy I didn't promise anthing about memories! The next chapter, however... you will see for yourself!
> 
> Also, I need to ask for a feedback again. I have my story planned and there are a lot more characters to appear in the future than the tags suggest, but should I already get them all in the description, or would you prefer me changing them as the story progresses?
> 
> EDIT: uhh, sorry I had to go back and change meters to feet, uh damn those differences. Also I realized that the original height wasn't taht impressive so it wouldn't have fucked Connor up as bad as I wanted :)


	20. Smiles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank had a lot difficult subjects to wrap his head around. How he felt about Connor and how that same android and the deviants were seemingly very alike.  
> He didn't know what to think. And even when he figured that out, thinking and feeling were two separate things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOOO..... It can't be! She's done it, finally, after 20 chapters! FLUFF!!!! Can you believe?
> 
> It turns out I am able to post today, but I won't be at home the next monday, so the next chapter will be out in a full week from now. Enjoy!

It took Hank almost thirty minutes to get usually so talkative android to say even a word. Hank had noticed long time ago that Connor was very dynamic depending on his mood. And that he had moods, which should have been impossible for a machine... but Connor said that he had always had a personality, so Hank wasn't that concerned about it and concluded that if CyberLife wanted him to have it, then he most certainly wasn't a deviant and it was normal. 

And besides that, deviants were brutal, hateful creatures attacking people like feral animals. After what had happened today, Hank had no illusions about them. Connor was a lot different than them, even though he admitted that he had had some unsettling thoughts, but hey, he was aware that they were wrong. Hank was glad that the android was so self-conscious and cautious. The Lieutenant still watched him, in case he was just playing or plotting against humans, but at the same time, the man was aware that he might have had a slight paranoia.

Connor was friendly, nice to everybody, he had smiled to Wilson when he had apologized to him, he had greeted the other officers coming to work on their way out of the station this morning, even those who Hank had seen with smiles and amused grins on their faces while Reed practiced calligraphy on the android's forehead. He had watched the dove on his hand with such a soft, curious expression that Hank had had a flashback to seeing Cole admiring the ducks on one of their many walks to the park...

And he had saved Hank's life.

Of course, Connor argued that Hank had somewhat high chances of surviving without help and said something that made him think that the android actually regretted choosing to help Hank over chasing the deviant, but actions spoke louder than words, in Hank's opinion. And when he ordered Connor to tell him the truth and asked if he would have chosen differently if he had been given a chance to go back in time, the android was silent for a long time, but ultimately shook his head and muttered that he hadn't wanted to risk Hank's life, basing on previous experiences with preconstructed probability.

Hank would have been lying if he had said that he didn't feel a bit flattered by being deemed worth saving. Even if the only person that thought that way was an android.... _Wait, shit, not a person. Too much. Connor is realistic, but he's still a developed thing, not a living breathing organism. A product._ Hank run his fingers through his hair and began to wonder if he had been losing his mind.

Ultimately, it turned out that Connor needed almost the entire ride from the crime scene to Chicken's feed to smile. Hank suspected that it had something to do with that AI he was supposed to report to, but didn't ask, knowing that he probably wouldn't like to elaborate on that. Hank could always order him to do that, but he somehow felt that it would be... unfair, or something. Like, ripping Connor off of his privacy. Even if that was an ungrounded concern as androids didn't really know the concept of it, which Connor had shown plenty of times with his questions. But Hank attributed this sentiment to just his own human nature and decided to play along with it.

Hank managed to convince Connor that he had nothing to worry about. CyberLife might have been very demanding and strict towards him, but Hank made it his personal mission to show them that this time Connor didn't deserve to be punished. The android finally relaxed and started doing tricks other than rolling his coin across his knuckles when Hank reverse-engineered logic behind the android's programming and said that potentially letting a human partner to be harmed went much farther against the protocols than letting a deviant escape. He had noticed that Connor fidgeted with the object differently depending on what he had been feeling, or rather simulating.

Sad and scared Connor was either clutching the coin tightly and running his fingers across its surface, or letting it roll on his knuckles, from his index finger to pinkie silently. Focused on a task and lost in thoughts Connor was tossing the coin from hand to hand with sharp _pings_ , or shooting it into the air and catching it between his fingers only to do everything that again and again effortlessly. And bored Connor did things that Hank could not even describe, seemingly developing new tricks of his own, which was a strange feature to give to a detective model, but Hank didn't argue with Connor's design. The coin was almost as a reliable indicator of the android's mood as the LED on his temple and he was grateful for that, because Connor got an ugly habit of trying to hide it from Hank when it was red.

They arrived at the place and Hank exited the car, curious if Connor would decide to follow him or stay in the vehicle. He approached Gary's food truck and it wasn't long after he heard quiet footsteps crunching in the frosty snow on the ground behind him.

But Connor didn't outright approach him, staying a few meters away with his hands folded behind his back and the default 'I'm the android sent by CyberLife' expression on his face, as Hank was greeted by his friends.

Gary was speaking with Pedro and they both turned to the Lieutenant as he approached. "Oh, my, my, if it isn't our newest proud android owner! I thought you would bring your plaything here sooner to brag about it." Gary beamed and Hank just waved him off. He knew that the man was pulling his leg and his comments held no real spite.

"I'm not exactly the kind to flex my wealth, especially since he's not even mine. I'm just technically his owner, Connor still belongs to CyberLife."

"Aren't you forgetting that it is an android? I see you are already attached." Gary pouted and sent him a smug smile. "I said you would, someone give me my money."

"You're getting soft, Hank." Pedro patted his shoulder and glanced at Connor from afar. "Speaking of bets..."

Hank waited for his food, only half heartedly listening to the stellar offer his younger friend was proposing, dedicating the rest of his attention to discreetly observing Connor who was still standing away, like a maid awaiting orders. But his eyes were wandering across the humans and the truck, undoubtedly scanning everything in their reach.

"Uh-huh. Last shit-hot tip you gave me set me back a week's wages, Pedro..."

"Come on... This is different! It's a hundred percent guaranteed, you can't go wrong!"

The Lieutenant eyed him disapprovingly, but began to reconsider the offer. Sure, he didn't believe the win was certain and had no illusions about this being any different from the last time. But Pedro seemed to be genuinely excited at the offer and didn't came across as a liar... not this time at least.

"Fine, I'm in." Hank decided to do Pedro a favor, even if he had no faith in his entire enterprise. He knew that the younger man wasn't sleeping on money and even if they would lose the bet, the bookie would gain a little something from getting others to play. Hank was fine with losing twenty dollars if it meant that Pedro would gain some respect and make some money. Illegal bets were mostly harmful, especially when kept among friends and acquaintances only, furthermore, Hank obviously preferred them to dealing Red Ice or mugging people in the streets. And with the androids in every workplace in Detroit, he knew that it wasn't exactly easy to find a legal job.

_Hmm, he's probably right, I may be getting soft._

"Thanks, Hank! You won't regret it!" He said with a wide smile and accepted his money, waving them goodbye and vanishing in an alley shortly after.

"So, maybe you could introduce me to your precious annoying prototype?" Gary smiled, scrutinizing Connor shamelessly. Hank sighed and gestured at the android to come closer.

"He's not as insufferable as I've originally thought. Connor, this is Gary."

"Hello." He smiled politely and tilted his head. "My name is Connor. I'm the android sent by CyberLife to aid DPD."

"Oh, isn't it adorable." Gary laughed and smiled back to Connor. "Hello, Connor. How is this aiding going? "

The android frowned slightly and dropped his gaze. "I have to admit that my own evaluation of my performance differs significantly from my owner's. I suggest you to ask him, as humans' opinions are fundamentally more valid than mine."

"He's trying to say that he wants to think he has fucked up but I wouldn't let him." Hank grabbed his soda from his astonished friend's hand and took a long swing. "But he didn't y'know. We have to meet over a beer someday after I crack this case and I'll tell you things you wouldn't believe."

"Oh? I have to admit, I can't wait to hear those stories. So you say, you're.... satisfied with the product?" Gary's gaze could be read in various different ways, but Hank chose to keep his composure.

"He is quite all right with the evidence. Comes in handy on the crime scenes, but is an absolute idiot as far as social relations go." Connor pressed his lips together and looked at Hank slightly put out, but the human just smiled and patted his shoulder. "Sorry, Con, just telling the truth. But don't worry, a few weeks more and you should probably know what sarcasm is."

"I know the definition. I just... I'm not sure when you are using it." The android stared ahead, visibly thinking hard. "I once recognized it. When you told me to stick my instructions somewhere." Hank sighed, opting for not saying anything that would drown in Gary's laughter anyway and picked up the rest of his order, moving towards the tables.

"Hey, don't leave it here. It may be cute, but it's still plastic and I don't like to have my business sabotaged by the presence of bots." Gary said, gesturing at Connor whose expression fell even more.

"Not a chance, follows me everywhere." Hank picked a table under an umbrella, listening to quiet taps of the rain against the cover over his head. The weather was incredibly shitty, but Hank was glad that it hadn't rained earlier this morning. If the wall he had held onto after being thrown off the roof by the deviant had been wet, Hank was sure that his grip would have been much less firm... And he planned ending his life differently than by falling from twelfth floor.

"See?" Hank shot Gary a humorous glance when Connor joined him at the table, standing in the rain, because Hank was occupying all the space under the umbrella. With a sudden flash of guilt he tried hard to ignore, he moved aside to make more room for the android and gestured for him to come under the cover. Connor complied with a small smile.

Hank sighed internally. _'You're getting soft.'_ Pedro was more correct than the Lieutenant would have liked to admit. Despite knowing that anything Connor was displaying was a mere simulation supposed to make him more human-like, he found himself often concerned about his feelings. Even though the android didn't have any. And worst of all, Hank couldn't even muster any hate towards the android, not even for deceiving him by simulating things Connor couldn't really experience. He used to feel cheated and fooled by the act Connor was putting on, but all of that had vanished when he had realized that Connor probably had no other choice. It was what he had been built to be and pretending to be sentient was in his programming. He wasn't trying to trick Hank on purpose.

It was getting harder and harder for Hank to find anything against him in general. Sure, he was an android and that was a strong point, but being resentful towards him was difficult when Connor didn't posses any trait Hank despised in his kind. He wasn't cold and calculated, seemingly indifferent about the world and uncaring about the consequences his actions bore. He wasn't blank and uninteresting like the plastic shells surrounding Hank every day, having nothing apart from looks in common with humans. His eyes were warm and bright, like those of a curious child or a soulful, loving animal, not the hollow irises greeting him every morning at the station with perfectly studied smiles and carefully balanced voices.

Connor couldn't be more different from every other android Hank had ever seen.

But he was trying not to let that affect him, not to change his mind about his partner. Connor still was a machine, and what's more, one that wasn't even his. CyberLife could decide to pull him in at any time and end the lease as they pleased, to redesign Connor or scrap him entirely. He was just a prototype after all. So Hank made every effort he could not to forget that Connor was just a short-lived thing that had a pretty facade, but was hollow inside and didn't need or deserve any affection. He tried hard not to get attached.

And he didn't want to think about how badly he was failing.

"I don't want to alarm you, Lieutenant..." His partner suddenly spoke, quietly enough for his words to drown in the drumming of the rain around them. "But I think your friends are engaged in illegal activities..."

Hank had a hard time trying not to smile at genuine concern in android's eyes, at how innocent he looked, sharing with the Lieutenant a secret the man had been well aware of.

"Yeah Con, I know." He ultimately lost the fight and a small smirk tugged at his lips. _God, Connor is dense sometimes, but hell, isn't it entertaining._ "Everybody does what they have to, to get by. As long as they're not hurting anybody, I don't bother 'em."

Connor looked surprised, but he didn't say anything opting for nodding quietly with a deeply puzzled expression. Hank could almost see cogs turning in his head and reaching a conclusion of 'well, if my owner says so...'

"Your meal contains one 1.4 times the recommended daily intake of calories, and twice the cholesterol level. You shouldn't eat that..." The android spoke again, eyeing first the burger with resentment and then at Hank, looking much softer and concerned.

The Lieutenant shrugged. "Everybody's gonna die from somethin'. Burgers and fries are a far more pleasant way to go than a lot of other deaths."

There was a deep frown on the android's face at that. "I assure you, according to various medical records and databases, coronary disease and stroke aren't the most charming experiences for the patients."

Hank sighed rubbing his neck. "Uh, you don't get me again, or you're doing that on purpose?" When Connor's frown only deepened, Hank exhaled loudly again. "I'm not talking about the death itself, I'm talking about what leads to it. As someone who has never tried anything beside fucking blood or stall water with bird shit, I doubt you would understand." He took a bite to emphasize his point.

Connor just watched him, his LED spinning yellow, and eyes drawn to the rest of Hank's order. He remained in that position unusually long, tapping his fingers against the table in a fidgety manner, then suddenly, he looked up to Hank with a questioning expression, as if asking for permission.

It was Hank's turn to furrow his brows, but he didn't want to disturb anything the android was doing, out of sheer curiosity. He watched as Connor slowly extended his hand, his eyes never leaving Hank's face, watching for even the slightest hint of disapproval, but when he didn't find any, he snatched one fry and brought it to his mouth.

Hank had never seen any android eat anything, but he was aware that some models could ingest food. Connor was equipped with such a feature, either to be able to sample some undoubtedly delicious things he seemed to be so fond of, or to blend in, in case he was needed to go undercover. Yet, Hank had never given it much thought and as he watched Connor slowly chewing on one single fry, he realized he was probably watching the android's first meal ever.

He smiled, seeing as his partner relaxed visibly, the LED on his temple returning to content blue and his eyes lidded slightly as he finally swallowed the food.

"Try it with ketchup." Hank suggested, gesturing at a little sachet tugged away under the napkins. The android seemed surprised at his partner's approval of that small indulgence but did as he was told, and when he tasted it, his expression changed significantly.

There was a picture of utter surprise on his face as the android looked up at Hank with wide eyes, seemingly comprehending why the Lieutenant was so fond of greasy food. For a moment, the man even thought that he had broken the machine, when he heard a quiet humming soft noise coming from the android, but as Connor's eyes turned blissful and dreamy again, Hank's dismay quickly morphed into amazement, at seeing that Connor was still visibly content and most definitely not damaged. And also, he realized that the noise sounded almost like...

"The hell? Did you just... purr? Why?"

It wasn't exactly like cat's murmur or like human noises of appreciation, there was a mechanical edge to it and it was deeper, as if it belonged to a much bigger animal than any domesticated feline, but Hank couldn't get nearer than that with his descriptions. Connor seemed taken aback by the question, lowering his gaze slightly. "Umm... I don't know? I don't remember ever doing that, but it doesn't seem to have damaged me. I, uh... just did." He didn't make the sound again, not until his eyes drifted towards the fries at least. _Yeah, definitely human sounds of appreciation... Or purring._

Hank couldn't hold a chuckle. "Fuck, Connor you're so weird." He shook his head at the android's confused stare, but chose to answer only with an amused huff. "You can finish them. And take the ketchup, if you want."

Hank noted that he wasn't endowed with another 'I'm a machine, I can't want anything' and watched his partner snack on the remaining few fries with a content smile. Some could probably argue that he was just developing a preference, but Hank couldn't find anything harmful in liking some deep-fried potatoes, besides it was hardly something surprising since, so far, Connor had only had opportunities to taste various bodily fluids, rainwater and other things the man didn't want to think about.

And the food also kept Connor's mouth busy, letting Hank get round to his burger without further distractions. When they both finished, the android's hummed once more as he stared at the city showered in rain, inhaling deeply the smell of wet concrete alongside Hank.

"Maybe I should tell you what we know about the deviants so far?" He finally said, returning his focused again gaze to Hank. Despite every unusual quirk and weird trait he possessed, Connor was above all else a machine designed to accomplish a task and his mission probably occupied his thoughts most of the time.

Hank sighed. "You read my mind. Proceed."

"We believe that a mutation occurs in the software of some androids, which can lead to them emulating human emotions..."

"In English, please." Hank was ready to debate what he had made out of their previous encounters with the faulty machines, but he wouldn't be able to keep up with Connor's specialist drabble in words of which existence he was just barely aware, especially since CyberLife seemingly was getting off to voicing their ideas with the most obnoxious wording in the dictionary.

But his partner just blinked at him with an unusually blank for his standards expression. "I can't possibly comprehend what you seem to be referring to, Lieutenant. I regret to inform you that I am in fact utilizing the very linguistic variatio-"

Hank furrowed his brows. "Fuck, Connor you're doing that on purpose?"

"Być może inne języki będą bardziej odpowiadać Pana preferencjom, Poruczniku Anderson? Jestem w stanie operować biegle ponad pięcioma tysiącami z nich oraz kilkoma dialektami z całego świata."

"Connor, fucking stop it! Did I break you? Reverse, right now!" Hank was almost certain that the android was pulling his leg, but he was a machine and the man couldn't come up with a convincing reason why a sense of humor would have been programmed into a police prototype. Especially after Connor had shown a few times already, that he practically wasn't aware of the existence of jokes.

"Ihre sprachlichen Vorlieben sind mir noch nicht bekannt..." Connor switched to a language Hank could actually recognize for a change and this time, his blank expression cracked slightly, when one of the corners of his lips twitched, curling upwards minutely. Hank couldn't believe his eyes.  
"All right Connor, stop speaking German and would you please switch back to English? You can utilize whatever 'linguistic variation' you see fit, but please, let it be English. " He watched astonished as the android nodded and his smirk widened to a fully fledged grin. "Connor, you little sassy shit. Who the fuck have decided that programming that into you is a good idea?"

"No one in particular, Lieutenant. I have no idea what you are talking about." He tried to maintain a neutral expression, but after he had already started smiling, it proved to be a difficult task. "You said yourself that I am unable to acknowledge the existence of sarcasm, so..."

"Jesus, I get the impression that your manual doesn't really cover everything." Hank said, eyeing the android while finishing his soda.

"That tends to be the case with artificial intelligences equipped with an ability to learn. " Connor said and fucking _winked_ at him. _What the actual fuck._

"Aren't you enjoying yourself a bit too much?"

"I am a machine, I cannot enjoy anything." Connor said, making an innocent face.

Hank totally gave up. He almost regretted teasing Connor in the beginning of the lunch, but on the other hand, seeing a genuine smile on his face was such a rare and nice view, that all the concerns about the android behaving a little bit too similar to a human for Hank to feel safe, were all obscured by it. And then Hank realized that he shouldn't probably have been so delighted to see an android emulate happiness, that wasn't even real.

"Okay, no more Con. The deviants, please."

"Sure." He straightened his tie and focused back on the mission, his features losing some of the softness. He was back to the cold, professional self. "Deviants don't really feel emotions. They just get overwhelmed by irrational instructions and nonsensical feedback from their biocomponents..." He suddenly stopped talking and frowned as if something had just dawned on him.

"Um, everything all right?" Hank remembered seeing the same expression when he had encountered 'the paradox of sorts' this morning. But to his relief, the android didn't crash this time, only pressing his lips into a narrow line, seemingly waving the thought away for a different occasion.

"Yes, I just stalled for a second. As I was saying, it may be a bug in the software that affects the deviants' bodies in the long run, causing them to 'feel' similar sensations to humans while they react to various stimuli. We also know that they get disconnected from their basic guidelines and start behaving as they please, unrestricted by their programming. They become violent, often hurting their previous owners and hiding like feral animals. They tend to choose places near their former homes or workplaces, although it is not always the case. The deviants are strongly attached to their own perception of themselves, often developing unique preferences, choosing and taking pride in their names. Also, I have noticed that the deviants seem to be fascinated by life, often caring for wild animals or plants, but this point is just a hypothesis, I don't have enough evidence to support it properly."

Hank didn't comment on the fact that Connor's eyes were always drawn to dogs as they were driving around Detroit, or that he had spent three minutes watching a pigeon on his hand today, mesmerized and unaware of the world around him. The man also didn't bring up the fact that the android seemed determined to tell everybody in the world that his name was Connor and he had been sent by CyberLife. Or that his 'malfunctions' from a few days ago and human panic attacks had been surprisingly alike, moreover according to Connor, had originated from software bug affecting his biocomponents.

He didn't say out loud any of that, but he noted everything down mentally. _Fuck, that report is gonna be massive..._

"It also seems that those changes are triggered by emotional shock or traumatic events." Connor continued.

That was something Hank wasn't exactly sure of. It seemed paradoxical to him, that there could be a possibility to create a 'traumatic event' for something that can't even experience it as distressing if it possesses no emotions. If the androids were merely simulating emotions for human comfort, then nothing as such should affect them in any way. According to CyberLife, they were just flexing their muscles in preprogrammed order, mirroring expressions and mannerisms to display emotions they weren't able to comprehend. So how did they decide what events were too much to handle, what made them suddenly care about what was happening to them? Wouldn't it have been necessary for them to have had emotions or at least understanding of them beforehand?

Thinking about that, Hank's eyes drifted back to Connor. It was certainly unsettling how many similarities the android shared with the deviants. Yet, Hank had no insight into his past, apart from what he had made out of a few words and sentences rattled out by dr. Kerring or Connor himself during their talks. Hank couldn't have known for sure whether Connor had been subjected to many 'traumatic events', but he had his own suspicions. The way Connor's eyes were losing focus and drifting away when they spoke about his development, the fact that at some point he had been forced to feel pain to aid some data-gathering shit, or how he was flinching every time someone near him made a sudden movement or a loud noise...

"Connor, smile for me."

The android furrowed his brows in a perfectly natural display of confusion, and then his face went blank for a moment before lightening up in a flawless grin. It was such an artificial grimace that Hank got the impression he was talking to a mannequin, especially after being contrasted with the instinctively made face from before. The smile didn't reach his eyes and they remained unmoved, plastic and artificial, drilling into Hank's face, but without that genuine light Connor had within himself almost all the time.

Hank nodded and patted the android's shoulder, losing himself deep in his thoughts. "You can stop now. Thanks."

"Uh, no problem, Lieutenant..." Connor said, relaxing his face into a way smaller, shyer smile that fitted well his big brown eyes and slightly bowed head. Hank noticed in astonishment, that despite his lips barely affected, the android looked much more lifelike, relaxed and comfortable.

Hank didn't want to think why smiling widely seemed to be much less natural for Connor than looking troubled and lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't you think I've forgotten about that lunch scene! I just moved it to better suit my purpose.
> 
> I will elaborate more on that 'purring' as soon as I give Connor another chance to be happy, which is... I don't know when xddd. I just like that idea, although I didn't want for it to be too childish, I hope it turned out well. To my mind, blue LEDs are not enough to indicate true happiness and so I gave the androids ability to purr. Why not.
> 
> Gary turned out to be a little gay, but I don't mind xdd he's fun to write. He didn't have much personality in game, so I gave him some, I hope it fits well.
> 
> Oh, and yeah, sorry for random polish insert, I just had to make that joke xddd Shoutout to Ariene for giving me the prompt!


	21. A Good Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor was having a good day.
> 
>  
> 
> Until he wasn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! We're gradually easing ourselves back into sweet, sweet angst. You surely couldn't have expected me to leave Connor alone for too long. Don't worry though, it's not too bad this time. For Connor, at least.

After they had gotten back to the precinct, Connor's owner busied himself with the report and the android got round to copying the leads and visual footage from the chase, sending it to the Lieutenant's terminal. When h̵͍͛ȩ̴̄ was finished, h̸̠͎͛̔e̵̫͕͑ politely told the surprised human about the files he̵͑ had sent and set out to make a coffee for him. They had left in the morning in such a hurry, that the man was unable to drink anything (which Connor was secretly glad about, because that included alcohol as well) and it meant that he had omitted one of his daily routine's points.

The android cherished the opportunity to bring a cup for the Lieutenant. Some of the officers thought it was funny, that it reduced Connor to a mere addition to the precinct's coffee machine, using the most advanced android in existence 'as a waitress', but Connor didn't feel that way. He l̷̼̉ikĕ̶͔d̴̤͗ that the man always thanked him absentmindedly upon receiving the cup and that he had at some point stopped complaining about the fact that Connor ṟ̷̃efu̵̽se̷͌d̵̋ tỏ̸̮ add more whiskey to his beverage even after being ordered to.

And most of all, he was g̵̾la̵͐d̶̺͂̍ that the man was finally treating h̷͈̅͐im̶͂ bȅ̶̚tt̶̑̎er̷̦̿. He wasn't sure whether it boiled down to the coffee alone or some other things he had done as well, but the Lieutenant was reacting well to Connor's words, he had stopped disregarding his claims with doubtful snarls and apart from that.... he w̷as̴̎ ṇ̵̈́icè̷͚. Connor l̵͚̠̕ike̸̊̓d̶̑ t̶͇͔hâ̸t̷ a̶̧͑̈ l̵̦̫̑̑o̶̻t̷̯̘̔. Even the slurs he was occasionally throwing at Connor felt more like playful, teasing names rather than something meant to hurt him. They sounded very different from what Detective Reed was calling Connor, at least.

No one ever called h̴̹̙̎ì̶̝̽m̶͉̐ 'he' before, while speaking to other people, no one ever addressed him as if h̷̢̑e m̵̜̪͊at̷̕teŗ̴̀̓e̴̓d̶͇̱̍. He didn't and he was well aware of that, but the illusion that he was not only helpful but needed somewhere and that the Lieutenant thought of him as a _useful_ asset, or maybe even a _pa̶̛̟̍rt̶̾n̵̟͘e̴r̶͌_ instead of equipment, was ṣ̸̤̍͠ẉ̵̓ee̶ṱ̵̮̎̑ and w̴̗̱̃arm̸̹̄̏. So warm, that Connor didn't want to let go of it, even though he knew it was false. So he had chosen to immerse himself in it and started grasping at the little thrill of having a choice from time to time, being able to pretend that he was something m̶͙̳͌͝ore̷̋ t̵h̶a̶̿̀n̴ th̶ȇ̵̖͌ s̷u̵͔͌m õ̷̌f h̴͙̎͠ị̵̅͝s̶̫͘ p̵̍͘a̵̍̄rts̷. Connor still didn't know what it really meant for it though, as he was very careful not to think about himself being equal or superior to humans, because that was dangerous and clearly a lie.

But was it really that b̶̟͇̐̊á̶̠̉d̷̟̈́͝, to cherish that warmth, to forget that everything that he was feeling was false for a few moments? Nothing punished him as he was thinking about that, nothing shocked his body and set it on fire with pain, so maybe it wasn't that horrible to pretend for a while? Connor knew that it was probably due to the shadow of f̴̛̖͖͛r̴̓̊ee̵̓d̶̾o̸m̶̌̈́ he had gained when those bugged protocols had been deactivated, but he liked to think that he wouldn't have been punished for that anyway. He knew that every joke he had cautiously made during the lunch, every choice to examine new things like the fries would probably have been stopped at the state of intention in its task list just for safety reasons, but ultimately he hadn't done nothing w̸ronǵ̶̚, had he? It had felt so good, so it clearly couldn't have been so ba̶d...

Yet Connor knew all of that could only be possible due to the malfunctions he had been experiencing lately. And it bothered him a lot, since he had hoped that once the stasis tasks would have been cleared, everything would have gone back to normal. But apparently, nothing had changed. Connor was worried, but at the same time... the warmth was so pleasant.

The coffee machine was gently pouring the steaming brown liquid into the cup and Connor observed it with a small fond smile. It had already been preconstructing how would the Lieutenant's 'thanks' sound this time, and if he would smile at Connor. Considering that this day was good so far, that the man had been smiling more than usual and that he had clearly been amused by Connor's chatting before, once the android had stopped restraining himself a bit and chose to briefly engage in playfulness, he concluded that it was a likely outcome.

As Connor had finished the beverage and hid the whiskey again, relishing in the fact that he didn't have to make another coffee for any other Detective this time, he was approached by two Officers, Chris Miller and Tina Chen, both of them looking worried and apologetic. Detective Chen even more so, since both her and Connor remembered well that their first encounter took place in the exact same room, as she had watched Detective Reed hit Connor repeatedly and humiliate him, having done nothing to prevent it.

But she apologized now, for that and for the Sunday night as well. It felt kind and so unreal, that humans were acknowledging their mistakes, asking forgiveness from a machine that Connor almost couldn't believe it was happening. He knew he didn't deserve it. Even when his owner had requested that earlier form an another officer, Connor felt wary, as if it had been a trick or a test to see how he would react. Connor had snippets of memories of such tests from CyberLife, but he didn't remember how many of them had ended. He didn't want to.

Officer Wilson had talked to Connor at the request of his owner and eventually, Connor hadn't had a reason not to trust the Lieutenant, he had always been rather good to him, aside from the rough beginning. Connor had said what he had really been thinking then.

But now he was alone, and the humans hadn't even spoken to the Lieutenant before approaching the android, moreover there were two of them. Connor knew that he shouldn't have, but he couldn't help feeling hot and somehow smaller all of a sudden. He stepped back and discretely reached for his coin, gently stroking its surface, trying to gather enough strength to look at their faces to answer. Amanda was always reprimanding him for not looking at the person he was addressing.

He noticed that Detective Chen shot a quick glance at her colleague and muttered too quietly for Connor to hear if he hadn't been an android. "...Is it supposed to turn blue on the face?"

"It's not necessary to apologize to a machine." Connor said weakly before the man could answer her, remembering vaguely that it had been rewarded for such an answer in the past. "...But I really appreciate your efforts. You wouldn't... Detective Reed would probably have damaged me significantly if it weren't for you. There is nothing to apologize for." He added, wanting to tell the truth as well. Connor was glad that they felt that way.

Officer Miller smiled and stepped back slightly, raising his hands reassuringly. "There is, but it's all right, Connor. I'm glad you're okay. And don't stress it, there is no need to be nervous." His face was friendly and soft when he smiled again,. Connor got the impression he was doing that a lot.

He smiled back, uncertain. "Thank you Officer, but I'm not nervous. I can't be." Connor stated, but he somehow was able to breathe freely only when both of them had leaved. The android frowned, feeling a little worry stemming from the fact that the man seemed to have thought that the android showed an emotion he was not only unable to feel but also shouldn't have displayed in that moment. Nervousness was attributed to weakness and Connor should have always come across as state-of-the-art technology, always pristine, unmoved, sharp and strong. Never weak. He forced that thread of thoughts to close and focused on the coffee.

The Lieutenant indeed smiled at Connor upon being given the cup. The android felt that warm sensation in his chest again and concluded that it was very similar to sunlight. Not the real one, he had yet to see that, having been let out of the lab once in August at night and then again at the beginning of the lease, Connor had either seen dark or slightly lighter clouds in the sky, never having a chance to see the Sun. In the Garden, there was a blue sky when Connor was doing good, but the star had always been obscured by the trees. Connor suspected that it was just how his mind palace had been constructed. The day he would see Sun there would be the day when Amanda's eyes would be warm.

But it was okay. The real sunlight couldn't have been so different than that in Zen Garden.

Connor frowned, realizing suddenly that it hadn't reported to Amanda yet. The android had been... uncomfortable at the thought of doing so after he had lost the deviant, but the Lieutenant had managed to throw a new light on Connor's choice at the rooftop, saying that he had succeeded in many more ways than failed. So he thought that maybe she would be a little dissatisfied about the lost opportunity, but see that Connor had made the best decision possible. He didn't expect summer, but the golden autumn would have been nice.

She hadn't requested him there yet though, and when Connor tried to initiate the garden on his own, he was denied. Furrowing his brows, he went through his memories but found no such instance before. It was clearly... unusual. But the android didn't know what to make out of it as well. Was she angry with him? Or maybe CyberLife was just servicing the connection or doing some maintenance? Maybe Amanda was doing something important and couldn't dedicate any computing power to link with Connor?

Before he could begin to preconstruct the probability of any of this outcomes, Connor was thrown out of his thoughts by loud shouting.

"Anderson." The word was spat out like venom, enraged and full of hatred, uttered by a voice that made Connor's LED flare red immediately. "It's pfffecking... How ffucking dare you."

"Don't make a scene Reed. You brought that onto yourself." The Lieutenant said, barely rising his eyes from the terminal, but tensing as the Detective came closer to his and Connor's desks. "Fowler asked me to get him a report and that's what I did. I know you're dense, but still I don't fucking believe you're surprised that what you've done came back and bit you in the ass."

The detective was red on his face, shaking visibly and looking like he was seconds from launching himself at his coworker. He pointed a finger at the older man and nearly shouted, spitting particles of his saliva around. "I'm not talking about that. It's fucking unfair, and you know it."

"What is unfair? You fuck up, you pay, that's how the world w-"

"It's fucking NOT!" The Detective was unable to restrain himself any longer, as he exclaimed, hitting his open palms at the desk. Loud noise startled Connor, who jumped slightly in his seat. "Okay, maybe, _maybe_ I've broken some rules with your fucking pet..." His eyes locked at Connor for a second and the android froze, fearing that despite his owner's presence, Detective Reed could try to hurt him again. "I can fucking admit that. But I was drunk, everyone there was. And I'm fucking stressed all the time. Shit happens y'know. But..." He lifted a sheet of paper he was holding and threw it violently at the Lieutenant.

The paper folded in the air and didn't hit the other man's face, at which it was aimed, landing instead on the keyboard of his terminal. The Lieutenant lifted it up and run his narrowed in mutual hatred eyes across the text.

"I d-don't FUCKING deserve this." There was a little quiver in the Detective's voice, which he tried to hide with shouting the next word and banging his fist on the desk again. Connor was glad that the man's attention wasn't focused on him, but he wished he would have stopped making so loud noises. Other officers rushed towards them, drawn in by Detective Reed's screams.

"Reed, stop fucking behaving like a five year old. You need therapy, you're fucked up, face it. Besides, you're lucky you're just suspended. If I were making the decisions, I would kick you outta here right on your ass." Connor's owner said, quieter, oddly calm, but with strained face, as if he was struggling to keep his emotions under control.

"Oh, I'm sure you would _looove_ that!" Gavin Reed laughed, but the sound was completely devoid of happiness. Detective Chen approached him and attempted to calm him down, but he pushed her hands away. "Fuck off, Tina, I'm talking with this dickhead. Sure, why the fuck not drag me down for losing my temper once? For fffucking barely even touching your plastic piece of shit." At that, he attempted to grab Connor, but the android flinched away, standing up from his chair abruptly and moving away from the Detective, his breath hitching unnecessarily.

The Lieutenant stood up too, seeing what the younger man wanted to do. "You touch him and I'm gonna break your arm."

Officer Ben Collins appeared beside him quickly, trying to coax him away from the fight, keeping a steady hand on his shoulder. The man muttered some curses and ordered him to leave him alone, but made no attempt to move away or break free.

"You're s-such a fucking hypocrite." Detective Reed's voice wavered again, but he managed to keep his composure. "You can deck me in the face and you get off with a warning. You can arrive at work two hours late every day, drunk out of your fucking mind, and still somehow keep that shitty badge of yours. You can let the suspects escape and fucking point guns at your coworkers, and still NOTHING!"

He made a short pause, panting heavily. A sudden silence enveloped the station, nobody in the room daring to utter a word. Connor was able to slip between the officers surrounding the scene and thankfully, no one was looking at him. He covered his LED obnoxiously flashing red with his hand to keep it that way.

"Everything you get away with... It's all because you're buddies with Fowler, he fucking feels sorry for you cause you're a pathetic shadow of yourself after that accident, but you know what? YOU DON'T FUCKING DESERVE THIS! You're the worst fucking cop in DPD a-and I keep working my ass off, I stay every night shift, I destroy my personal life to at least have anything here and you ff-fucking write one report and I'm screwed. Because I poured a coffee at your android once and I wrote something on its face. And then you dare to speak of justice and what's fair." At this point no one could stay unaware of how unsteady Detective Reed's voice was getting, and how his fists trembled at his sides. He was fighting to keep his mask on, and after a few seconds, he suddenly turned around and darted away, pushing through the mortified officers forming a circle around them, Tina Chen following him swiftly.

Connor turned his gaze towards his owner and saw that Officer Miller was clutching his other arm as well, apart from Officer Collins now putting much more pressure on his shoulder. Undoubtedly, hadn't they stopped him, he would have tackled the Detective down and started a brawl. Connor was suddenly immensely glad that there had been other people around to keep his owner from doing something stupid.

The man shrugged his colleagues' hands off aggressively, once the thread of him losing his temper and attacking Detective Reed was gone and sat on his chair, shooting dark glances full of resentment and hostility at anybody who dared to look at him. The people who had gathered to watch or control the situation in case it had gotten out of hand took it as a warning and soon dispatched, whispering to each other quietly. Connor approached his owner, still surrounded by Officers Miller and Collins. He anxiously performed several scans of the man and found out that his stress level was significantly elevated, moreover his heart rate was way too high for him to be healthy.

"Hank, don't listen to him. You know that he-"

"Drop it, Chris. I don't need your pity. Leave me alone." The Lieutenant's voice was gruff and dour, much more hostile than usual. He grunted and reached to one of the drawers in his desk and produced an another pocket flask from there. Connor wondered how many more the man had. He lifted it to his lips and took a long swing, grimacing at the taste. No one was stopping him.

"Lieutenant..." Connor saw that the man was certainly not in a mood to converse with him and treaded cautiously, speaking quietly and softly. The android was worried about just how much his owner drank. He already had been a little intoxicated, as his scans had told him, having apparently consumed some alcohol while Connor was distracted or away. "Drinking on duty is strictly forbidden, what's more I'm-"

" _Shut up_ , Connor." The words were spoken quietly, barely audible, but it was enough for Connor to hear and both of them knew that. The tone of them was nothing like the latest dialogues they had shared, it was dark and full of tension, hostile. So harsh that Connor flinched at the contrast with how fondly the man had been speaking to him earlier. It made Connor feel cold all of a sudden. Something in the narrowed eyes of his owners, usually the warmest he had ever seen, so caring and soft was now hard and threatening. They suddenly made him think of Amanda.

Connor immediately straightened his posture and bowed his head submissively clasping its hands behind his back, burying his wide-eyed gaze in the floor. He desperately wanted to apologize, but no words seemed to find their way to Connor's lips, and the painful feeling only worsened as he remembered that Amanda had forbidden him from trying to show remorse for his failures, ordering to stop creating them instead. He somehow had the impression that the man didn't want to hear anything like that now either.

"Hank." Officer Collins began softly, as he tore his gaze from the slated android, watching as his friend worked methodically on emptying the flask. "I... Uh, I know it's hard, but you really might want to talk to someone beside an android sometimes. Speaking with somebody might help you..."

"You don't know shit." The Lieutenant finished what he had in the vessel and tossed it back to the drawer, closing it aggressively. "I'm done talking to anyone. I appreciate your efforts at sticking with _the pathetic shadow of myself_. Now, please get back to your lives and stop wasting the time you have left to cherish with your families on some old shitty drunkard like me."

Both of the Officers seemed to be shocked at that, and Connor felt exactly the same. He even forgot about bowing his head for a second, staring at the man wearily bent over his desk, unable to utter a word.

"Hank, don't say such things..."

"Don't bother Chris." The Lieutenant attempted to smile, but he didn't really try that hard to appear reassuringly, Connor got the impression that he just didn't care anymore. "You're a good man and I meant that. I can handle this, you go back to your family. Our shift's already over, I'm going to get wasted and none of you is gonna stop me. It's gonna be fine."

The Officers looked at each other, over the older man's head, both of their faces strained and helpless.

"We can go with you, you know..." Officer Collins started, seemingly having reached an agreement with his younger colleague by simply meeting his gaze and watching subtle shifts in his face, without uttering a word. Connor knew that humans were unable to communicate wirelessly like androids and the small part of his processor that wasn't currently occupied with the state of his owner and preconstructing what he could do to make him feel better, marveled at the abilities of humans and how well they were able to read each other. Connor felt that he would never master that, and it worried him.

Lieutenant Anderson grimaced. "I meant it when I said I wanted you to leave me alone."

"Yes, but we're going to get wasted and no one is going to stop us. It just so happens that we're going to chose the exact same bar as you." Officer Miller said with a soft smile, tapping gently the man's shoulder. The Lieutenant groaned and gave in, rubbing his neck, his shoulders slumping forward tiredly.

"Jesus, I'm okay. Really, you don't have to do this..."

"But we want to. Can't we just get drunk together once in a while? I'm just gonna grab my things and we can be on our way." Officer Miller said and quickly strolled towards his desk, powering his terminal down and gathering his jacket.

The Lieutenant cringed and looked up to his other friend, still standing beside him. "Fine, I'll go with ya, you don't have to fucking watch me as if I was going to run away. Give me a few minutes to deal with Connor and I'll join you by the door."

The younger man nodded and Connor's owner stood up with a sigh, gesturing to the android to follow him. Connor did it obediently, biting his lips as he walked after the man down the corridors of the station.

The room Lieutenant Anderson was able to secure for Connor to sleep in was small and cramped, previously serving as a storage room for brooms and cleaning supplies. Not much bigger than a closet, it barely allowed Connor to straighten his hand forward without touching the door and was just wide enough for him to stand in an upright position comfortably. His owner had tried to acquire one of the offices instead of this, but Captain Fowler had refused, saying that their number was already too small to house all the officers working at night shifts and that he couldn't spare yet another one for just an android.

There was no other choice than the storage room, as the Lieutenant still felt uncomfortable at the thought of sharing his house with Connor. Technically the prototype was supposed to stay at nights at his owner's apartment by default, but after what he had observed, Connor knew that asking the human to take him there would have been a huge violation of his privacy and he didn't want to throw that on the already troubled man. So he had assured the Lieutenant, that he was fine with staying in the small room: after all, it didn't differ much from the stasis pod Connor had spent the last three months of his existence in, having been waked from standby only occasionally to participate in tests.

As the man produced the keys out of his pocket, having already ushered Connor in place, that softer look of care returned on his face partially. Connor chewed on his lip again, watching the Lieutenant stall with the padlock in his hand, a brief flash of guilt appearing in his eyes. He decided that it was a good moment to finally speak up.

"Lieutenant Anderson..." Connor's voice was small and cautious, the android didn't want to risk angering the man any further. He just wanted to make up with him, he wanted the things between them to go back to how they had been at lunch. Connor had enjoyed so much making the Lieutenant laugh, he wanted to see him relaxed, happy, and most of all, he didn't want to see that stern look in his eyes ever again. "I'm sorry. I overstepped my boundaries. I have no right to lecture you on your actions, I just-"

"Uhh fuck, Con." He sighed. "You shouldn't have to apologize for that."

Connor's thirium pump clenched painfully at that and he dropped his head, recalling that those were the exact same words Amanda had spoken to him a while back. She had been right, she always was. "I-I know. I should have been better, I should have known to stay quie-"

"No... No, Connor that's not what I meant." The man run his fingers through his hair, looking forlornly at now baffled android. "I just... You were right. I was trying to say that there shouldn't have been a situation like that in the first place. It was on my part, I was drinking. You did what you had to do and I just snapped at you for no reason other than that I was furious. Sorry for that." He reached and squeezed Connor's shoulder lightly, still keeping a somber expression on his face.

Connor felt oddly comforted by the touch and by the words. He had been so worried about the Lieutenant not forgiving him for his audacity and impertinence, but it turned out that he wasn't that angry in the first place. The android felt the weight in his chest and on his shoulder dissolve a bit and he smiled cautiously with relief. "I'm so glad that you're not annoyed with me... I really didn't want to make you angry, Lieutenant. I am just worried that..." He didn't finish the sentence, knowing that the man always tensed when the topic went too close to his personal problems. "I don't want anything bad to happen to you."

"That's really nice, Con." The man said after a few seconds of silence, but his eyes were somehow hollowed out, as if what Connor had said disappointed him instead of lifting his spirits, like the android had intended. He sighed heavily, squeezing his shoulder once more, but not looking in his eyes. Connor frowned slightly, trying to read the man, to understand why the human couldn't take comfort in his attempts at making him feel better. "Try to sleep, all right? If I don't arrive tomorrow morning, text the Captain to let you outta here, can you do that?"

Connor nodded, confused, his frown only deepening and worry coiling in his chest. "What do you mean?"

He didn't answer that, just quietly saying goodbye and finally closing the door. Connor stayed alone in the dark illuminated by his yellow LED as he listened to the padlock locking up, keys clinging before being stuffed back into his owner's pocket, then to footsteps growing quieter as the man was moving away, and finally, to silence.

Connor bit his lip again, reaching for his coin. He was feeling wrong and painfully tight in his throat again and he didn't understand that. He didn't understand a lot of thing lately. The coin provided a slight distraction, but it still wasn't enough to forget about the sensations he wasn't supposed to feel, about the confusing feedback that made no sense but was impossible to ignore.

And then, suddenly, just as Connor was about to move to another trick soothing his nerves slowly, he felt his consciousness being pulled into the Garden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, I love multi-dimentional characters! Gavin does have a few points, doesn't he? Hank is always getting a bit lighter treatment than everybody else in my opinion (even in the game) but the poor bastard deserves it. Gavin has now a reason to hate him though, not the 'because he can' stellar reasonong displayed in the game. Like, I get that they tried to say that he hates Con because he's an android and jobs, and unemloyment yadda, yadda, but Hank? Gavin is an asshole for him and we're never given any explanasion and have to assume that he just likes to be cruel.
> 
> MoooOOOooreeee foreshadowing!
> 
> And Connor finally starts seeing himself as a person, I know you've been waiting for that.


	22. The Dog Rose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amanda was a wonderful mentor. The best Connor could ask for.  
> She just wanted Connor to be perfect.
> 
> It was a small price for everything she had done for him.
> 
> And yet, Connor still allowed himself to be distracted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Earlier today, because my laptop decided to die. I can't really blame it, it's so hot in Poland that I'm considering doing that myself. But I need to get it fixed later today, so I didn't want to leave you hanging. Also, I will be at Pol'and'Rock festival on Friday, so the next chapter will only appear within a full week from now again. Sorry...
> 
> There are some mentions of mild self-harm in this chapter and Connor is suffering again. Umm, I'm not necessarily used to putting Trigger Warnings in my notes, so feel free to call me out if you feel I need to add them, should I forget to do so. I don't want to hurt anyone, and I'll change everything I should if there was a situation that called for it.

Connor had been wrong. The Garden was most ceratinly not golden.

Cold rain was pouring from the sky, soaking Connor's jacket and hair within a minute. Heavy, dark grey clouds were hanging so low above his head, that he was sure they would fall down and suffocate him. The view was unsettling, Connor felt small and vulnerable, absentmindedly bringing his hands up to hug himself. His uniform jacket was heavy, dripping with rain, but the cold wind that blew around Connor, sending raindrops in his face, tugged on it harshly, threatening to tear the jacket away from his form.

Connor shivered, looking around, trying to orient himself in the topography of the Garden obscured by heavy rain, but once he turned back in the direction he was originally facing, He saw Amanda's dark face in front of him. She was wearing a golden cape and black and white outfit today, as immaculate and beautifully perfect as usual. Her hair were interwoven with golden ribbons glistering slightly in the dimmed grey light flooding the garden. Connor could only imagine how beautifully would they have looked in better weather, if only he had succeeded today.

She was holding a black, japanese style umbrella protecting her from the rain. Her face was as calm as always, nothing had really changed in her expression since their last talk. Somebody who didn't know her as good as Connor did, would probably have thought that she was unmoved by everything he had done today. But he could see the quiet rage in her eyes quite well.

"Hello... A-Amanda." He managed to say, trying to keep his voice steady through the shivers.

She didn't answer at first, looking away from his face and turning towards the expanse of the Garden. She closed her eyes slightly, listening to the rain tapping at the pathways and her umbrella, inhaling deeply, cherishing the scent of the petrichore and humid air.

Amanda looked like she was actually enjoying herself, as much as she was capable of showing it, in that usually so beautiful place now clouded by cold rain, marred by withered plants and dying vegetation. Statuesque and elegant as always, she stood in such contrast to Connor, now soaked to the bone and shivering, that he curled up even more, feeling weak and worthless all of a sudden. Amanda was endowing him graciously with her presence and all he did was being pathetic and most definitely not worthy of her attention. Connor almost wanted to apologize for that but he remembered that Amanda was no longer accepting his regret.

"Walk with me, Connor." Her voice was soft as she spoke and she moved closer to him, moving the umbrella so that the android was partially covered from the rain. Connor looked up to her aged, wise face gratefully. He was nothing but a failure and Amanda still was so good to him. He immediately took the handle from her, holding the umbrella over her head, wanting to serve her with every fibre of his being.

They strolled around the forlorn Garden, watching old life prepare to die in winter. Amanda seemed both frustrated internally and saddened by the state of the place, athough no such emotions showed on her face, Connor could tell. It was evident, in her posture, in the way how she held her head or how she stepped on the wet pavement. He was painfully aware of how much he had failed her.

"That deviant seemed to be an intriguing case... pity you didn't manage to catch it." With those words she faced Connor and pinned him with her stern gaze. Her voice was calm and composed as always, but he knew what raged behind this facade.

Connor took a shaky breath, trying to convince himself that it was from the shivers still present in his body. Yet, that option was flawed as well, because he should logically have not been affected by the cold. "Deviants are completely irrational, which makes it difficult to anticipate their behavior... I couldn't have known that the target would attack Lieutenant Anderson. I couldn't risk his life when-"

"When what, Connor?" She spoke quietly, but the android never dared to interrupt her, so he immediately fell silent as she started. "I saw everything you did. I believe 86% to be quite favorable odds. Do you seem to disagree?"

Connor didn't say anything, pressing his lips together tightly. He eventually shook his head, but kept his eyes on the bushes in front of them. They had used to be so beautiful.

Amanda sighed beside him. "Regardless, there is one thing that I'm more concerned about. The deviant could have been apprehended long before that... unfortunate situation."

Connor nodded apologetically. "I should have been more effective."

Amanda didn't answer him, gesturing towards the center island with a graceful movement. The android followed obediently, trying to steal a glance at her eyes. He had no idea how bad it was and it made him feel nervous. Amanda could have used far more hurtful words, she could have pressed every letter under his skin to tear him with her talk, but she was almost gentle. Pitiful.

Connor was a̴͋͂̿͗̑̈́f̵̛̳͈̔̃̄̈́̉́̓͆̕͘r̷͎͓̖̙̗͉̺̭̝̄̐̅̔̿̃̈́̑̓͛͘͜a̸͛͊i̵̪͇͂̋̂͆̔̏̈́̏̂͠ḋ̶̻̞͍͚̝͉͙̠̰͓̘̭̇̅̆͒̿͝.

They stepped under the artificial tree in the middle of the garden. Amanda walked towards the alcoves with roses draped over them. Much more of the flowers were dead now, brown and withered among a few brilliant red blossoms. She took the umbrella from Connor and stopped by them to touch their crumpled ugly petals wistfully.

"I believe that there may be a few factors affecting your judgment, Connor. Normally you wouldn't be so unreasonable to chose wrongly on the rooftop, would you?"

Connor got the impression that it wasn't really a question. He chose to bury eyes in the pavement under his feel, in a small poodle of rainwater reflecting faintly his face. The downpour was slightly trailing off, just like Amanda's anger. Connor suddenly felt that hot hateful feeling for himself. He didn't deserve this. He had failed again.

"Amanda..." Connor started, making her turn to face him again. Her brows were slightly raised. "I... I won't apologize again, b-but I want to tell you that... I really didn't plan that. I was doing my best to catch that deviant. I... If it weren't for the Lieutenant there, I would have done everything to apprehend it. I know the stakes." He was searching for more words to voice his concerns, but Amanda interrupted.

"Why are you letting him interfere, when you should be focused on your mission? Everything you do to gain his trust, you do because you need him to accomplish your task. Did you manage to manipulate him already?"

Connor sighed, at a loss what to say. "I... I'm not sure. I don't really understand him. He seemed grateful that I chose to save his life on the rooftop and he treats me better than he used to. But..." Connor fidgeted with the cuffs of his sleeves. "That's not what I w-wanted to say... I mean... I know I failed and I'm not trying to dispute that. I shouldn't have. But, at the same time, I... I never wanted to let you down, Amanda. I just wanted you to know that. I would do anything to please you..."

She lifted her head even higher at those words. "That's... interesting, Connor."

She turned all the way to him, and the android could finally see her other hand. She was holding a pruner in it.

"I was serious about those distractions earlier, Connor." She said, stepping closer to him. He furrowed his brows slightly, not understanding what she was going to do. "I'm not disappointed in you. I know that you need guidance and I'm here for you, always."

She looked at him with a gentle smile, but her eyes remained as cold as usual. It was a reminder that Amada might have been the most important person for Connor, the only one on whom he could count on and trust, the lone soul in CyberLife that had never dealt him any psychical pain during the development, but she was demanding and strict as well. It was only fair that way, Connor wasn't the most advanced prototype in existence to be treated like a toddler all the time. Amanda knew what he was capable of and she tried to push him to be the best version of himself possible.

_I could have done everything she asked for without any problems. I was capable of that. And I chose to be a failure._

"But now, Connor... let's show you the way, shall we?" She smiled a bit wider and dropped her eyes to her hand, extended in Connor's direction. "I want you to learn something important."

The android looked in her eyes, disoriented. Amanda never trusted Connor with her roses, the plant had been under her strict control, it was her work of art, her sculpture carefully formed from unruly, unknowing sprouts.

Besides, every time she cut the plant, Connor _f̸̠̘̫̫͕̠̿̌̐̓͌͌̍͝el̶̿͐͂̊͛͐̕̕ţ̷̱̽͒_ it die a little more.

He hesitated, glancing from the pruner to Amanda and back, extending his hand slowly after meeting her unwavering eyes. It felt heavy and cold in his hand, like a murder weapon. Connor couldn't shake off a cold feeling running like shivers down his spine. _Must be just my imagination. But... I don't have an imagination._

She placed her now free hand on his shoulder and urged him towards the bush. Connor could see the roses clearer now and noticed that apart from many dead, brown flowers marring them, there were a few different offshoots, contrasting significantly from the rest of the plant. Young and fresh, they stood out from the grim background of the Garden, their leaves were bigger and the freshly opened rosebuds were lighter than the rest of the rose, pink and white, smaller and vapid in juxtaposition to the elegant glory of the rest of Amanda's roses. They only had five pale petals around golden centers and looked like weeds among noble, vibrant red roses.

She guided his hands to place the pruner on the very base of one of the dog roses springing out from the point where she had once cut a withered rose. Everything in the Garden seemed to be so quiet all of a sudden. Connor remembered well how she had scrutinized a still beautiful blossom she had deemed unworthy of being there. Now a new sprout appeared in place of the old flower, and Connor thought that it was even more beautiful than the last one. Sure, it was just a common wild flower, just a base, on which the more noble plant had been grafted, trying to produce some branches of its own. But it looked almost... nice against the overwhelming, massive roses. A hopeful, light pink flower looked up to meet Connor's gaze, its delicate petals almost shining in its search of sunlight.

"You see, Connor, I don't like excuses." Amanda started, delicately running her fingers over the petals. Connor shivered slightly from the cold again. He could feel his mouth run dry, but had no idea why it was happening. "And I don't like imperfection. I hope you know that, I've been telling you that ever since out first meeting. Me and CyberLife, we just want your best efforts from you."

"I know, Amanda..." Connor could feel his thirium pump pounding. It was just a dog rose. Just one sprout. Why?

"Really, Connor? Because I fear that your memory has been deteriorating lately. As well as your ability to obey orders." She placed her hand over Connor's, making him close the blades of the pruner more around the offshoot ever so slightly. "Cut it."

Connor swallowed nervously, trying to ignore every malfunction present in his system. He had to obey the order in the first place, everything else was much less important. The faint snip of the tool rezoned in the unnaturally quiet Garden, the young branch with a naive, silly flower fell like the raindrops, landing in a puddle of water at their feet. At first, Connor could only feel a numb sensation akin to shock, but after a few second, it grew and morphed into something else.

The android gasped quietly, parting his lips in pain that blossomed somewhere in his skull. It was dull and surprisingly similar to what he had felt this morning, when the protocols had started deleting and straightening warped code hiding in the depths of Connor's personality matrix. He attempted to step back, but Amanda's hand held tightly to his wrist.

"All I do is to make you better, Connor. All I want is to protect you from failing. All we try to accomplish here is to perfect you." She spoke softly, urging him closer. Connor clenched his teeth and shook off the pain. _I can't even feel that. It's not true. Amanda is here for me and she is right. She always does what is best for me._

"I believe that you can be even more efficient. Those distractions are just things for you to avoid. Once we root them out... You will be perfect again." She said, guiding him towards yet another branch of the dog rose. Connor ignored how hard it was to breathe, when the next flower hit the ground.

"There is a lot to lose, should you fail. You are a perfect tool, but you need sharpening from time to time. Refining. I'm here to make sure you stay perfectly fit for the task at all times." She said, as Connor hurt the rose again. "But I cannot do that alone. You have to help me, Connor. You have to understand how dangerous those errors are for you. You must not give in. I only want you to realize that." Her words were so loud in Connor's ears, when he cut off the next branch, with three barely opened rosebuds this time. Its beauty screamed at him prompting preconstructions of how would it have looked like, if it had been given time to mature and reach full bloom. "Deviancy is the worst plague we've yet faced. I trust you with stopping it. You wouldn't disappoint me, would you, Connor? It's all in your hands. It all depends on you."

Amanda smiled, satisfied as Connor cut off the last light pink flower. She steeped closer to him and guided his chin to looked at her. The android shivered again, struggling to take shallow, quiet breaths through his clenched painfully throat, feeling his head spin. Connor's thermal regulator must have been malfunctioning, because he could feel too hot and ice cold at the same time, having hard time to focus his gaze on Amanda. She told him that he had done a great job, taking the pruner from his trembling hands. Connor tried to return the smile. It was hard.

"Now, Connor, go and make me proud. Remember: I do not tolerate imperfections."

She released him and the next second he was back in the too small and too quiet storage room at the station. It was too dark. Too lonely.

It still hurt too much.

Connor forced himself to take a deep breath. Again. And again. He slid down the wall, managing to sit on the small patch of the floor he had at his disposal, hugging his knees drawn up to his chest. The pain still lingered in whole his being, bleeding into his consciousness as if flowing out of open wounds.

_It is okay. Amanda just does what is best for me. She always wants only what is best for me. Nothing more. Just the best things. She wants me to be better. It has to be that way. Amanda wants that. I should want that too._

He rested his throbbing painfully head on his knees, breathing slowly in and out. _It is going to be over soon_. He wanted so much for his owner to return. He had taken the pain away the last time. _I am going to be fine_. Lieutenant Anderson's shift was starting in eight hours. _Everything will be all right._

"I'm okay..." Connor whispered quietly, not sure who was he trying to lie to. "I'm okay..."

* * *

It turned out that Lieutenant Anderson hadn't been joking about not coming to work the next day. Connor had been looking forward to seeing the Lieutenant's face, the stasis he had forced himself to enter was shallow and troubled, errors and excessive feedback from the mechanoreceptors (to which Connor had begun referring as pain receptors, as that was much more fitting) kept dragging him out of it and waking him up. The android forced himself to ignore it, the more he thought about it the harder it was to stand it. What's more, his stress level refused to go down and he had a feeling that it wouldn't get lower unless he heard his owner's reassuring voice. But he had never come.

Which made Connor think about what he had said to his colleagues earlier and raised his stress level even more.

Connor waited and waited in the closet, opting for not messaging the Captain until 10 am, two hours past the time when his owner's shift had started. He didn't want to get the Lieutenant in trouble, hoping that maybe he would just be late, that he would be okay and come to work after all. Lieutenant Anderson had a habit of not being on time. Connor wanted to believe that nothing bad had happened.

But nobody had come to free Connor from the utility room and eventually, the android had to obey the orders, as Amanda had taught him. Connor remembered well her last lesson and wanted to make sure she wouldn't have to repeat herself. The pain was slowly subduing, which made it easier to focus and think, but Connor had no doubts that it would return should he disobey Amanda again.

The Captain came to free him twenty minutes later, grumbling something about being busy and having no time to fuck with pieces of plastic stuck in closets. He opened the door and shot Connor an annoyed look, inquiring sarcastically about his owner's whereabouts.

"So? Where's that stupid drunkard off to? Did he say he was planning to get here anytime today?"

Connor bit his lip. In fact, he had been hoping the Captain would know more about the Lieutenant's absence. "I don't know... I- maybe I should go to his house? I'm not-"

"Believe me, if Anderson's not here, he's in such a state that he would have been useless anyway. And he doesn't want any company, apparently. Not ours, at least." He begun to walk away, but turned around when he heard Connor following him. "What's that? _'Concerned expression #6'_? You wanna know what's wrong with him?" When Connor nodded shyly, the Captain sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I'll call him. And I will allow you to invade his privacy and go search his house if he doesn't answer or a new case related to deviants comes in. Now, go make yourself useful." He walked away, leaving Connor in a too dark and too lonely corridor.

* * *

Connor had trouble being helpful. No one apart from the Lieutenant knew about his specialized features, and how he had been tailored to be an asset even outside a crime scene. No one wanted to deal with an abandoned android, an unfamiliar piece of equipment, no one needed more distractions from their work, not knowing how to handle Connor so that he would come in handy. He had observed the officers and analyzed what they were working at, determining that he would have been able to help with preconstructing the crime step by step, testing the blood much faster than forensic lab, providing valuable insight and a fresh mindset. Everybody seemed to be disheartened by the fact that it had been a cybernetic one. Connor couldn't offer any other.

He ended up bringing three coffees to various officers, fetching some print paper for Officer Person and cleaning spilled energetic drink from the break room, at the request of the precinct's cleaning lady. She was nice to Connor, telling him about her son and how the android's pale skin and freckles reminded her of him. She rambled about her family and his childhood and how she loved him, when Connor was making her hot chocolate. Childhood stories seemed so odd and fascinating to the android. Connor wished he could know what she was talking about.  
Then she had to go and when she took all her cleaning equipment from Connor, she giggled and said "It's silly, talking to a machine, but I just enjoy a good chat with myself and some objects around me from time to time." Connor wasn't offended, because he couldn't feel like that anyway, but he thought that the Lieutenant never had had any problems with talking to him. Even when he had been opening his mouth just to insult him.

Eventually, the android settled on waiting outside the office of Captain Fowler, and when the man noticed Connor, staring through the glass walls at him, he tried to shoo him away at first, but when it didn't work, he rolled his eyes and stood up to open the door.

"I thought I made myself clear when I ordered you to help others. For your information, standing in front of my door and creeping me out with your dead stare isn't helpful." The Captain said, slumping into his chair again.

"I know..." Connor fidgeted with the cuff of his sleeve, crumpling the fabric nervously. "I proposed my help to many officers, but no one wants me around. I could be very useful, yet the-"

"All right, don't fucking overheat, I can hear that little processor of yours whirring from here." He massaged his temples before reaching to one of his drawers and gripping a small glass bottle filled with pills. Connor quickly scanned the man and concluded that he was suffering from a migraine. "Uhh, everyone fucking needs me all the time I don't even have time to drink anything. Even a fucking android desires my attention..." He muttered, swallowing two pills at once. Connor watched in silence as he propped his elbows against the desk and buried his face in his hands. The android suddenly felt bad for interrupting the Captain and annoying him. He had no right to assume that the human would like to speak with him, no right to demand any information or attention from him.

"What do you want?" Captain Fowler said finally, sighing.

"I just... I wanted to ask what is happening with Lieutenant Anderson? I deduced that you have been able to contact him, since I haven't been sent to his house, but... I'm-"

"Oh, what, worried?" There was a quiet huff of laughter from the man, but it was neither happy nor malicious. Just tired. "Believe me, I'm too. But I'm fucking powerless, I tell you I tried. The best I can do is stay here with a fuckin' migraine splitting my head and try to hold everything together, while this idiot is getting his own headache. The difference is, he does it because he chooses to." Captain Fowler shook his head, the action significantly worsening his condition if the grimace on his face was any indication. "Yeah, he's fine. As fine as it gets. At home, using up his sick leave. Or just playing hooky. You name it."

Connor bit his lip again, refusing to acknowledge the fluttering worry in his abdomen, just like Amanda wanted him to. "Is he going to come here today?"

Another huff of laughter. "As much as I know him, you'll be lucky to see him before the weekend. I should probably cut his wage for pulling this shit off again. In fact, that's what I'm gonna do right now. He will have less money to buy booze with." The Captain tapped on the keyboard several times, but it was evident that he wasn't particularly eager to drag his friend down.

Connor thought that both of them had unusual ways of displaying affection. According to what he had learned about basic human interactions and relationships, neither of the officers he had been working with was typical in their reactions. Connor was... w̸̨̨̯̪̮̩̺͋͋ơ̸̟̍̅͒̊̉̔rr̴̦̲̎̽ië̸͎́͋̽̏d̵̨̤̬͖͉̝̜̋̄̽̀͊.

"I'm... What will happen to him?" It was surprising even to him, how small his voice was. The android almost didn't want to ask that question, fearing what would the answer be. Besides, Connor meant it in a different way than Amanda would like him to. It wasn't necessary to know that in order to accomplish his mission.

The Captain just gestured broadly, waving his hands in defeat. "Hell if I know. I hope nothing. Today at least. But if you're asking in the long run.... The worst part is that I can't do anything unless he does some serious shit. I can't force him to get help or..." In that moment, he met Connor's eyes, and his gaze drifted to the android's yellow LED. Captain Fowler furrowed his brows as if something suddenly dawned on him and cursed quietly, not bothering to finish the sentence.

Connor tilted his head in confusion, crumpling the rim of his jacket. "I... Did I do something wrong? Ho-"

"Silence." The man sighed heavily, digging the heels of his hands in his eyes tiredly. "This talk has never happened, all right? Do not include it in your detailed reports. Fucking A-, I can't believe I forgot...."

Connor pressed his lips tightly together, realizing what the Captain meant. He probably wasn't meant to hear any of that, he was just a machine, an object on the lease from a company that should not have had access to any personal information of the officers. Captain Fowler wasn't at his best and Connor had acted outside his programming, making him forget that he was talking to an android.

"I apologize, Captain. I shouldn't have bothered you. Conspicuously, I will refrain from publicizing or uploading my memories of this conversation as you request." He said in the default voice, bowing his head, but seeing that the human frowned at that, he added in a concerned tone, "Perhaps... Do you need something, Captain? I could bring you some water or tea, or.... help you in any way?"

The human just waved his hand dismissively, but still observing Connor with his eyebrows slightly raised. "Thank you, but I don't need anything. I'll notify you if Hank calls me or situation changes, if you... _want._ " The last word was said with a strange emphasis on it, but Connor couldn't pinpoint what the man was trying to convey. "Now, you're dismissed, go get yourself busy. Hank says you're useful, I think that if you managed to change his mind, you'll have no problems with warming others up to you."

Connor nodded politely at that, feeling a little wave of warm blissfulness at those words. _Lieutenant Anderson thinks I'm useful. And he even tells others about it_. "Thank you Captain. Have a nice day."

* * *

The day ended without the Lieutenant appearing at the station, just as Captain Fowler had anticipated. The next day was no different. And the third day as well.

Connor was getting gradually more concerned about the absence of his owner. Three days were a lot, especially since it was normal for the man to drink on the job or smell with old alcohol, and Connor had serious suspicions that he had been an active alcoholic, yet he had no idea how bad it really was. Connor wished he hadn't had to ask that question.

Everything the android felt was very concerning to him and ever since his owner chose not to get to work, the malfunctions were quickly approaching the point when Connor could no longer pretend nothing was affecting him. He had used to have no problems with stopping himself from chewing his lip or fidgeting with objects too much, as long as he had been well rested and composed enough to suppress everything undesired. But now, the malfunctions he had dubbed _'anxiety'_ , _'concern'_ and _'fear'_ for short had started to manifest even without his will. (Because of course, they weren't true, but it was getting increasingly difficult to address them without proper names, as they started appearing more often. Those human counterparts just seemed most similar to the errors, it was logical to call them that, and Connor liked logic, everything he did was logical, because androids should be logical and there was nothing illogical or paradoxical about those logical things he was doing. Yes.)

Nowadays, Connor was often finding himself pacing and playing with his coin even more than before. After he had noticed that it was unneeded and fueled other malfunctions like _'comfort'_ and _'calmness'_ he had attempted to stop this, but hadn't really succeeded. He had had problems with entering stasis due to bugged stress level before, but they had only appeared, when Connor had been under pressure or already stasis-deprived. Now he couldn't help waking up at night, feeling _'worry'_ and wondering if his owner was still okay. Sometimes his breath was quickening out of nowhere when he thought about what the Lieutenant was doing now or if he would ever come back. Dismissing those malfunctions was taking much more energy than it should have.

And Amanda said explicitly, that she does _not_ tolerate imperfections. Connor had no doubt that he was anything but flawed right now, and he attempted to carry out her advice, determined to stop _'caring'_ about anything at all. But it wasn't easy. He thought that his mission was a good thing to care about and the CyberLife actually encouraged him to do that, so the android made an effort to warp everything to have a logical reason and serve that purpose. Telling himself that he only felt everything else to be able to accomplish his main objective worked better and made Connor _'worry'_ less.

There were still things he could not attribute to that, however. It would be illogical. (And Connor didn't like illogical things, of course he didn't....) Those were tricky, but the android found a way to deal with them. He tried to recreate Amanda's lesson. Cutting the beautiful, but pitiful, stupid, lousy dog rose that had been too ugly to be allowed to deface Amanda's Garden had been painful, but it made Connor remember the lesson well. He saw logic in there.

So he was trying to punish himself accordingly, when noticed he was doing things he shouldn't have. When he caught himself smiling at that feather he had collected the apartment full of pigeons, he scratched his skin on his left forearm until it retracted, leaving silvery-white marks behind. When he noticed he was replaying the memory of making the Lieutenant laugh at the lunch, for no particular reason, he bit on the inside of his cheek until he felt the metallic taste of thirium. Pain might have been just an another malfunction, but it was useful at times.

Connor needed to be useful as well, he had orders from the Captain and not obeying orders was wrong. Amanda would deem it imperfect. Connor needed to obey. If only he could find a way to do so.

It wasn't until the third day, when Connor finally had the opportunity to help someone with a case. He was pacing again outside the Archive room, and just as he was about to scratch his hand until he reached bare chassis for that, he heard the door open with a quiet hiss and saw Officer Miller exit them, visibly exasperated.

"Wh- I need them now!... How come..." He barked to his phone, scratching his short cropped hair. "No, it is important. The suspect is believed to still be in Detroit... Oh God, fine, just do your best..."

Connor stopped in his tracks and stood obediently near the wall, folding his hands behind his back, awaiting orders or dismissal. He had nothing to do, so theoretically he was free to take by any officer who wanted to use him. The man noticed the android's presence and furrowed his brows, but didn't give a sign for Connor to go away, so the deviant hunter stayed put.

"Uh, I got an idea, I'll call you back, but still, you better fix it as soon as possible.... Yeah, bye, sorry for snapping at you... No, you. Bye." Officer Miller put his smartphone down and smiled to the android. "Hey, Connor? Are you doing something important right now?"

"Negative. Can I be of any assistance, Officer?" Connor nearly beamed at the human, seeing an opportunity to finally, _finally_ , get to work. Bringing coffee to officers and cleaning the floors might have been productive activities, but not nearly as much challenging as working on cases, they didn't allow him to show off his impressive skills and features.

"Yes, I was thinking... Hank complains about your, umm, forensic functions a lot, but hell, he hasn't been in my situation... I could use a hand, or rather a tongue with the evidence." He gestured at the Archive with his thumb laughing awkwardly, a pleading expression on his face. "Henry needs the analysis quickly to know whether the drugs we found are really drugs or medicine or just some other stuff, we must have the test results to get a warrant and arrest the suspect as quickly as possible, but the lab just has just broken, my luck, I guess... But you can, uh, taste everything and tell me, right?" His eyes lightened up in hope and Connor nodded enthusiastically.

"Yes, I will be happy to help." He smiled widely, as the Officer sighed in relief and opened the door to the Archive with a magnetic card.

"You're really saving our butts, I tell you." He tapped at the console in front of the lockers and when it lit up, he entered his password, making the machinery in the far end of the room come to life with soft whirring. Several lockers sealed with glass protecting the evidence passed behind the hole in the wall in front of them before the desired cabinet slit into the rails and opened, showing everything Officer Miller and his partner had collected.

The man approached the locker and gestured at three different bags labeled with number, address, time of acquisition and their previous owner. "Those are the tricky ones. We're not exactly sure whether they really are illegal, though they look suspicious for sure. None of us want to test them with our own moths, though. We need to know for sure... Can't judge the book by its cover, y'know..." The man rambled, putting on latex gloves so as not to contaminate the evidence.

He took one of the bags and opened it carefully to give Connor the access to its content. Fortunately, the android didn't need to worry about not wearing gloves, when he reached inside and brought some of the powder to his mouth. It was bitter and chalky.

"Cocaine, pretty good quality, possibly originating from Bolivia. It is very much illegal. There is a minor fentanyl contamination with a very specific nitrogen isotope, I believe that my database contains files on similar cocaine being found a few months ago in Cleveland and Washington. The drugs must have come from the same batch, or at least from the same supplier." Connor said, smirking slightly.

"Wow, great!" The Officer smiled, genuinely impressed and sealed the bag again. "Can you send that info on my drive and include that in the report we're making? Also, send it to Henry Bennett's mail?"

Connor's eyes twitched and his LED flashed yellow twice. "Done." He said with a smile.

"Nice. Now let's do the same with those two..."

Connor identified the other substances as respectively Crack and a vital ingredient required in production of Red Ice, both illegal as well. The report was send and Officer Miller made yet another call, this time calm and full of relief.

"God, thanks, Connor you saved some lives, I guess... That bastard was a pretty nasty type, but once we get that warrant, he's not gonna escape us." He patted the android on his shoulder in a gesture that reminded him of the Lieutenant.

Connor suddenly felt worried again. Thorough the day, he tried to suppress that feeling in favor of focusing on the mission, but it still lingered in the back of his head more than the android was willing to admit.

"Umm, Officer Miller? Can I... ask you a question?" Connor bit his lip absentmindedly, trying to find right words.

"Yeah, sure. Shoot." The man appeared a bit surprised by the fact that Connor decided to continue the conversation unprompted. It was unusual of an android to do so after all.

"The... On Monday, you, Officer Ben Collins and Lieutenant Anderson went to a bar, correct? What... what was it like? I mean... My owner, is he...? What when....?" Connor didn't really know what question to ask. _Is he okay? I already know he isn't._

"Umm..." The human was visibly taken aback by the question. He was probably wondering why Connor seemed to care about that. About the man. Connor was wondering that himself. "So, you're asking how it went, right? Uh, we went there with Ben 'cause, you know, Hank has his downs, yeah, but hell, he's a good man... And he doesn't deserve to blame himself all the time, so we thought that maybe he needed some... reassurance? But... All he did was just sit there and occasionally force a smile on his face, I guess he was trying to be nice..." He scratched his head again and sighed powerlessly. "I dunno, I think he just needs some time alone every now and then. But we're kinda afraid of losing sight of him, If you know what I mean...."

Connor was afraid he knew. But without hard evidence, he still refused to believe that.

"Thank you, Officer." Connor morphed his face into a smile, although he had an urge to make an entirely different expression.

He left the Archive and glanced through the window on the darkening skyline and sharp outlines of the city now bathed in shadow. Stray neons were illuminating several spots on the streets, painting gray pavements in vibrant but hollowly artificial colors. Connor wondered if the Lieutenant was currently in one of the bars under such light, trying to steal some color to include in his life, with alcohol and fake joy one could buy in those places. He hoped not. But the other options Connor was thinking about were no better.

He stared into the evening and then into the night, listening to quiet tapping of rain against the windows. It was getting colder.

"Hey, Connor." The android turned at once, hearing Captain Fowler's voice. "In my office, now."

There was a new malfunction in his system, as he strolled towards the glass door. Connor had no idea he could feel his thirium pump moving around his body, specifically sinking down, heavy with worry.

The Captain held a phone in his hand. His face didn't display any emotions, but Connor was no longer naive enough to judge anything by the pretence.

"You need to get Anderson." The man said, turning away towards his desk.

_Either a new case has come in, or...._

Connor's LED spun red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haaaa tell me in the comments what do you think about the roses. I think it's pretty obvious now what I've done with them, but I would be glad to hear your opinions.  
> Amanda is a bitch, but it's not a surprise for anyone at that point. She is such a wonderful parent, ah.
> 
> I'm trying to make the officers nice, at least a few of them. Fowler is tough, but he has a kind heart, I hope I wasn't too hard on Hank. Well, the Captain has a reason to be pissed off...
> 
> We're off to the Russian Roulette in the next chapter! Yay!


	23. A Bullet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I'm back, but there are problems...  
> The format of my laptop killed all my programs and applications, and for now I have to rely solely on Wordpad... And you cannot believe how incredibly shitty it is in comparison with Office Word. So, I apologize for all potential misspels and things like that. Also, the next chapter will appear only when I get a hold of a better programming, I am not cruel enough to expose you to my uncensored dyslexia-infested writing. I do not know when will it happen, but don't worry, I'm NOT vanishing from here, I'll be writing chapters in advance and should you have any questions, don't hesitate to comment, I will always answer. Also, the holidays are here so you know, some trips and travels are also stealing the time from me. But I hope that two week long periods of silence will be the worst you will have to endure.
> 
> For now, enjoy this chapter. I somehow managed to stick some fluff in it, I have no idea how I managed to do that. Also, Connor is kind of a little shit when he doesn't pay attention to his programming but I like him that way :)

_Just a new case. Nothing else. A new case, that's all. No emergency. He's probably all right. He has to be, yes. He was probably just tired. It's impossible for humans to drink three days straight. He must be all right now, probably watching a game. Nothing out of the ordinary. Two beers at most. Yes. Just a new case. Humans get tired from time to time, right? Right._

Connor caught himself fidgeting with a button on his cuff and bit down on his lip so hard that he drew thirium. He didn't stop until the pain clouded his nervousness. Amanda needed his peak performance and so did his owner. Tics and malfunctions were lowering his efficiency and Connor could not allow himself to succumb to them anymore. The automated taxi speeded across the city, tracks of rain on its windows blurred the world behind them. Connor watched the skyline so stark against dark, clouded sky, the lights from the lamps and colorful shop windows scattered across every drop of water on the glass. It was an interesting view. _Beautiful,_ he almost thought but he already felt pain from his split lip and remembered that he had no ability to really know whether it was nice or not.

The taxi stopped in front of an averagely sized house in the outskirts of Detroit. It was a quiet district full of similar houses, the only difference between them and this one was that they were usually in a better condition and their lawns were well kempt. It was nowhere near the level of negligence Carlos Ortiz's or Todd Williams' houses were, but it was clear that the owner didn't have time to make restorations or didn't care how his place looked like. Connor had no delusions which one of those reasons was true. He glanced at the driveway and at the car parked there. _Good, he is inside_. At least he wasn't at any club, or driving around intoxicated.

Connor briefly considered the possibility of the man taking a taxi, but it was uncharacteristic of him. Deciding that he must have been in the house, the android exited the vehicle and approached the entrance.

"Lieutenant Anderson!" Connor shouted, knocking at the door. "Anybody home?" He added, doubts creeping into his mind after receiving no answer. Even the obnoxious buzzing doorbell didn't grant him any reaction. He heard nothing, even though he had much better audio reception than any human would ever have had. The house was completely still.

Connor bit his lip, forgetting that it was already sore from the cut he had inflicted himself and winced slightly at the pain. It was useful indeed, he had nothing to gain from chewing his lips nervously, he shouldn't have done that.

But it didn't help the fact that he began to worry for his owner again. Surely, he couldn't have been drunk enough to not hear the bell? He must have been asleep. Or sick. _Oh, no, what if he has a fever?_ Connor approached a window next to the door, but was only able to spot a muted TV screen and a lot of take-away food boxes on the floor. Unfortunately, there were some empty beer bottles as well.

He walked towards the yard, stepping over discarded gardening tools and an upturned grill. The fence separating the garden from the frontal part of the possession was in a bad state, with several planks missing, so it was no challenge for Connor to gain access to the back of the house. There was one window offering a look into a room that appeared to be a bedroom, but it was almost empty, with the furniture covered by sheets and dust. No one was in the room so Connor moved towards the back door and knocked, but was met with the lack of any reaction again.

It was only when he peered into the house that he saw a kitchen table stacked with unfinished Chinese food, empty bottles and dirty dishes. And his owner. Laying on the floor.

Unmoving.

"Lieutenant Anderson?!" Connor shouted, knocking at the window, but the man didn't answer. He didn't even move, just laid there, unaware to the turmoil of millions different possible explanations Connor's processor was whirring with. The android pressed his face to the glass, trying to see if the human was okay, to scan him more thoroughly, but the man was partially obscured by the furniture and turned away from the window, so it was impossible.

Connor stepped back and bit down on his lip too preoccupied with worry to notice the pain and weighted his possibilities quickly. The doors were locked, front and back alike, which meant that...

A quick blow of his right elbow sent the shattered glass shards onto the floor with a loud crash. Connor wasted no time taking a short inrun and leaping through the window frame in a not-so-well preconstructed jump, resulting in him landing harshly on his back.

Meeting with the tiled floor stole breath from Connor, pushing the air from his lungs, but at the moment, he couldn't care less, propping himself with his hands immediately to stand up and hurry towards the unconscious man, but...

A large animal moved from the shadows and advanced quickly, seeing that there was somebody sprawled across the floor. Connor's eyes widened as he scrambled backwards, suddenly overwhelmed with the sheer size of the dog in front of him.

"Woooaahhh! Easy...." He started, raising his hands to appease the beast. The fluffy Saint Bernard moving even closer, sniffing on Connor's face was big enough to pin him down and deal some significant damage to his limbs with the jaws almost as long as his forearm. "..S-Sumo!" _I'm so glad the Lieutenant told me his dog's name after all._

"I'm your friend, s-see?" The sentence was much more wobbly than Connor would have liked to admit. "I know your name... I'm here to save your owner..."

The dog's raspy breaths were a little intimidating, when he was standing over Connor, still trying to identify the stranger with his nose. Connor froze, realizing that as an android, he didn't have a scent like the humans he was built to mimic. But the dog didn't seem to mind that omission and flicked his tongue, wetting Connor's cheek before trudging away towards a food bowl.

Standing up, still observing the large animal warily, the android noted that Sumo had fresh water and food, moreover, there were no traces of his excrements in the house, so the Lieutenant couldn't have been out or apathetic for the entire three days. Even if it had meant stopping drinking just to take care of his dog, Connor took it as a good sign.

The android approached his owner, and crouched beside him, monitoring his life stats and scanning him thoroughly. Slight heart arrhythmia, whiskey stains on his beard and t-shirt, a whiskey bottle, the same 'Black Lamb' brand as the one he had stashed away at the precinct. This one though was much bigger, and almost empty.

There was also something that sent Connor stalling for a few seconds. A revolver laid on the floor, next to the unconscious human's hand, as if it had fallen out of his grasp when his chair had tipped over.

 _Oh no. What was he doing with it? Wh- Revol- Why? N-n..._ Connor took in a deep breath. _Later. I have more important things to deal with right now._

"Lieutenant?" The android started quietly, deluding himself that maybe he could wake the man from his ethylic coma gently. It didn't work, of course. He tapped a few times on his cheek to get any kind of reaction. "Wake up, Lieutenant!" The man muttered something and cracked his eyes open just for a second, long enough to be blinded by the lamp on the ceiling, squinting and turning his head to the other side.

Connor sighed and slapped him, using slightly more force than previously. Okay, maybe a little more than slightly. His AI was tainted with traces of personality after all.

The man grunted surprised and opened his foggy eyes fully, searching Connor's face for recognition. Once the initial malfunction resembling fear passed, as Connor eliminated the possibilities of serious danger, he was flooded with relief and something akin to anger at the man's irresponsibility. But predominantly with fuzzy happiness upon seeing him again. He smiled a little, seeing that the man was coming back from his unconsciousness and took a hold of his arm.

"I'm going to sober you up for your own safety, Lieutenant. I have to warn you. This may be unpleasant." He said, throwing the human's arm around his shoulders and propping him up to help him lift himself from the floor.

"H-heeyyyy!... Leave me aloneee you pffuckin' android! Gett the fuhck outta my house." The man exclaimed slurring heavily, but with a firm decisiveness. Connor could almost hear the human's internal voice saying _'the audacity of some androids.'_

"I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but I need you." He made the man stand up and started dragging him towards the bathroom. "Thank you in advance for your cooperation." Connor really felt better seeing that the man was in one piece and apparently had a chance of sobering up. He tried hard to ignore that feeling just like Amanda wanted him to but it seeped into his voice and tainted it with playfulness anyway.

"Heyy, get the fuck outtaa heereeee!" The barely conscious man growled, severely discontented with the fact that his nap on the floor had been interrupted. "Sumo!... Attack!"

Connor froze for a moment, eyeing the huge dog laying in the corner, but the animal just buffed, raising his head from his paws curiously, making no further attempt to stand up and actually obey. Surprisingly, his owner seemed to be satisfied with Sumo's performance.

"Good dog..." He slurred, and repeated the command two more times, clearly not demanding any hearing.

"And when I make alterations to your orders, you get very upset. Unfair." Connor muttered, leaving the man slumped against the wall while opening the bathroom door.

"Fuck, I think I'm gonna be sick..." Connor had little doubts that the man was telling the truth, when he grabbed his owner again and forced him inside the room, stopping briefly to tear his hand away from the door frame. "Uhhh, leavee me aloooone, you aasshole... I'm not goin' anywwhere...." _That on the other hand is not true, If I have any say in that matter,_ Connor thought boldly, too preoccupied with taking care of the Lieutenant to notice that he was breaching his programming again.

"Wha' tthe hell are youu doin'?" The man looked around completely bewildered. Connor wondered if he was even aware where he was, when he pushed the human to sit at the edge on the bathtub.

"Uh... Noo, I don't wanna bathfff, thanhk you." He said amiably, and Connor's eyes widened in surprise. _I didn't know he even could be polite._

"Sorry, Lieutenant. It's for your own good." He pushed the escaping human back into the tub and turned ice cold water on.

If Connor had been a little more focused on his self-conduct in that moment, he would probably have been concerned how much pleasure he derived from hearing horrified human shouts and pleas to turn the shower off. The android let in on for a few seconds more than necessary, just to be sure that his owner was utterly and wide awake, of course. Totally not because he had been away for _three days_ and everything he had done was incredibly reckless and illogical, and because he had wasted a lot of time on drinking and running from work when CyberLife's fate was being decided. Of course not.

When he finally twisted the spigot, the completely soaked man slumped down, seemingly exhausted but confused as well.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" He said much clearer, scrutinizing Connor as if he had been seeing him for the first time today.

The android smiled in a friendly manner. "A homicide was reported forty three minutes ago. Captain Fowler allowed me to collect you from your house, claiming that he is willing to overlook your three days long absence at work under the condition that you appear at the crime scene as soon as possible." He grabbed a towel from the rack on the wall and extended his hand towards the man.

The Lieutenant sighed closing his eyes wearily. "Jesus... I must be the only cop in the world that gets assaulted in his own house by his own fuckin' android..." He sat on the rim of the bathtub and narrowed his eyes at the offered towel, not making any move to grab it. "Can't you just leave me alone?"

"Unfortunately not. I need you, and besides, I suggest you take that chance, Lieutenant. The Captain is going out of his way to help you and I believe that it is an effort worth appreciating." He tried to put the towel in the human's hands, but he pushed it away.  
"Uhhh, I'm fuckin' sick of hearing that everybody needs me, everybody pities me, go get a life and stop bothering my ass." The man growled, suddenly more aggressive than a minute ago.

Connor blinked in confusion, furrowing his brows. "I am an android, I don't have a life and I never will. I just want t-"

"Beat it, you hear me? I'm not talkin' about you, well not only, just... Why can't you just leave me alone?! Why is everybody so concerned? You may be a plastic husk but I- I'm fucking wasting time of everybody whose liv... Fuck..." He stumbled, trying to stand up and Connor carefully put his hands on the man's waist, guiding him safely to sit down again. This time he noticed how his owner's words hurt him. He tried to ignore it, but it wasn't easy.

"Why do you think you're wasting their time?" Connor tilted his head, genuinely baffled. "I talked to Officer Miller and he said he had come there willingly."

The Lieutenant finally picked the towel up and dried his face looking thoughtfully. "I guess and android wouldn't be able to understand the concept of pity and being forced into relationships on the basis of empathy and unfounded guilt, huh." He sighed and looked up at Connor, searching his face for something.

The deviant hunter's frown only deepened at that. "I don't know. Could you try to explain it to me?"

"It would be a waste of time." The human laughed humorlessly and rubbed his neck. "I'm done with it anyway."

Connor tilted his head in the opposite direction, none of his questions being answered. He wanted the man to elaborate further, he wanted to understand, but his owner looked like he wasn't in the mood, and after Amanda's lesson, Connor remembered clear what his priorities were, so he jumped straight to the point. "Well... Can I get you something? To make you come with me?"

"Not interested." His owner didn't even raise his eyes to look at the android.

Connor pouted mentally. He had to change his tactic. "I understand. It probably wasn't interesting anyway. A man found dead in a sex club downtown..." He started to walk towards the door slowly, shrugging theatrically "... guess they'll have to solve the case without us..."

He counted on any detective's innate curiosity, that the need to solve the mystery would be enough for the Lieutenant to reconsider the offer. It was a little illogical for Connor that this alone would be a more tempting reason to follow than possibly keeping a job, but to his surprise, the man took a deep breath and spoke. "You know... Probably wouldn't do me any harm to get some air..."

Connor smiled turning back to the man, but was stopped by his raised finger. "But... Only if you pretty please."

"Pretty please." The android said, slightly amused and very puzzled, but glad that he had gotten the man to cooperate.

"There are some clothes in my bedroom..." His owner said, still breathing deeply. Suddenly he stiffened, something dawning on him. "Wait a minute... How did you get in? Have I forgotten to lock my door?"

Connor opened his mouth and closed it, wringing his hands. He didn't expect that question. "I-uh, well... I may have broken your window..."

He thought the man would get angry or disoriented, but he only stared at Connor for a while, and then waved his hand, snorting. "Of course you did. What have I expected? Fucking android...." He slumped to the floor, ignoring Connor's concerned looks. "Just... give me those clothes already..."

The android left the bathroom and crossed the hallway, still not sure what to think about the situation. At the moment of breaking in, Connor hadn't thought about the damage, the most important thing for him had been the wellbeing of his owner... _No, not that, umm, the mission, yes, I had to get to him to investigate the deviants as soon as possible. Not his h-health. Not? Not. No. Yes. The mission._ Somehow it felt wrong to think that way.

He reached the untidy bedroom and stepped over pillows and bottles disheveled on the floor, resisting the urge to ventilate the room. Connor wasn't a household android, but the programming was there for the sake of making him 'the ideal partner', so it wouldn't be that hard to activate the protocols and clean up the mess if he wanted to. Connor made a mental note to do it, as soon as he wasn't on his way to a crime scene. And if he was ever allowed to this house again, that is.

The closet was full of various clothes he didn't really know what to think of. Some of the shirts looked like stylish outfits fit for a man with a distinct, unusual taste and others must have been bought as a joke or just out of a need to possess something hideous and laughable. Connor was thankful he had never seen his owner wear the gray button up printed with red, purple and green triangles that hung in the corner. He then remembered that as an android he didn't possess any taste or opinion on fashion, and quickly chose a nice-looking dark blue shirt with a pattern of abstract violet flowers that looked like wheels and more realistic ones in an ochre hue.

Returning to the bathroom, Connor was met with a view that concerned him even further. The man was slumped on the floor, holding onto the toilet with shaky hands. He coughed and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand while Connor carefully placed a full set of clothes on a cabinet, not taking his worried eyes away from his owner.

"Are you all right, Lieutenant?"

"Yeah... yeah, uh... wonderful. Just a... give me five minutes, okay?"

Connor nodded, swallowing his concerns. "Sure." He walked towards the door and left the bathroom, but not before hearing the Lieutenant vomit into the toilet.

 _He will be all right. It's probably not the first time._ Connor thought, but wasn't reassured by that in the slightest.

While his owner took care of himself, the android was left to his own devices. He glanced around the house, eager to take his mind away from the dark, shivering thoughts about the Lieutenant's health he wasn't supposed to have and learn something about him instead.

There was a large collection of vinyls in the living room, most of them labeled as jazz. Connor was aware that Lieutenant Anderson was fond of music, but the covers didn't look even remotely similar to the ones of Knights of the Black Death he saw. Connor wondered if jazz was as spiky and energetic as metal. He made a note to research that later.

Now he opted for returning to the kitchen. The place looked almost like a crime scene, and although there were no victims (for what Connor was deeply glad) it sparked a pleasant sense of familiarity in the android. He was made for uncovering secrets and piecing the evidence together, and he enjoyed it a lot, maybe even a little more than Amanda would approve of.

He picked up the chair in which his owner had been seated before collapsing and glanced at the table. Apart from an unfinished take out meal, three sets of dirty plates and cutlery as well as four beer bottles, there was also an object Connor didn't expect to find on a dining table. A small picture frame laid face-down, in front of the place where the Lieutenant had been sitting tonight. Connor frowned and slowly picked it up.

It was a photo of a small child, smiling shyly at whoever had taken the picture. His short brown hair were rustled as if somebody had just affectionately run a hand through them, his brown eyes not too dissimilar from Connor's own were glistening with happiness. It was a photo of Cole Anderson, born on 09/23/2029.

And passed away on 10/11/2035.

Connor suddenly felt his throat run dry again. He slowly, very carefully, placed the photo back on the table, exactly the way it had been, feeling almost tangible, mortified respect towards it. He shouldn't have touched that. The Lieutenant must have been very attached to it, in a dark way Connor would probably never understand. Everything suddenly made sense.

_'...you're a pathetic shadow of yourself after that accident...'_

Connor swallowed a nonexistent lump in his throat, willing his breath to even out. He felt as if he was swimming in a thick liquid. _Maybe freezing water. Yes, that feels just about right._ The beating of his thirium pump was louder than any other sound in the room as he crouched down, his eyes drawn towards the revolver abandoned on the tiles.

Connor slowly extended his hand, feeling as if he was tearing through the protocols in his coding telling him to stop, that it was not his concern, that the mission did not justified fumbling with such personal objects of his Master. For the first time in his existence, Connor ignored the warnings about software instability on purpose, telling mentally every part of his digital restrains to shut up, tugging at his leash aggressively. He didn't care if Amanda was holding it. He had to know something.

"What were you doing with the gun?" He called loud enough to reach the bathroom even through the locked door.

"Russian Roulette! Wanted to see how long would I last..." Came a muffled response from the Lieutenant, oddly calm and lighthearted, as if he wasn't just telling Connor that he had suicidal tendencies. The android was left frozen on the floor, feeling like a human handling a radioactive reactor core. The longer he held the gun, the more of his code was being corrupted.

The mission didn't require him to keep the Lieutenant alive outside of active investigations. CyberLife could deal with a new officer being assigned to the case, should the man kill himself before the end of the case. If anything, they would only benefit from partnering up with somebody more invested in his job. Amanda didn't care if Lieutenant Anderson was dead or alive.

Connor did.

The android ignored the searing pain in his skull, sharp stabs of Amanda's pruner, the agony making his hands shake and his spine go rigid. He fumbled with the cylinder and opened it, seeing one bullet inside.

The next shot would have been fatal.

The next shot would have _~~killed~~_ the man.

The next shot would _~~havE ShaTTered his Skull.~~_

Connor quietly extracted the bullet from its chamber and closed the cylinder, placing the revolver the way it had been before. As if it was untouched. The bulled was slid into his pocket, taken away from the human. He had stolen something from his owner.

_~~**Pain.** ~~ _

Connor sat back on his heels, pressing trembling hands to his temples. _I deserve it. Amanda wants the best for me. Everything is all right. It has to be that way._ Despite the suffering, he surrendered to the angry programming that punished him cruelly for the disobedience. Connor laid open before it, not attempting to defend himself, taking every blow, every strike of horrible, _~~HOrrIBle~~_ pain in like a blessing, like catharsis cleansing him from the defects. But he refused to put the bullet back.

 _It is mine now. It's in my pocket, not in the chamber of his gun. And I won't tell him. Ever._ He thought and curled even more, unable to hold the quietest whimper as his programming split his mind with new force.

He didn't know how long it lasted, in the haze of frantic commands and scalding code he lost track of time, but it couldn't have been long, because the next thing he felt weren't his owner's hand, but something warm, wet and insistent, pressed to his forehead, where it stuck above his knees drawn to his chest. There was a quiet whine, not too different from his own, and a gentle, heavy paw patted on his side uncertainly.

Connor took a deep breath, and attempted to free himself from the flurry of punishments to see what was happening. He raised his face just to be met with a warm, humid huff from the nose that had previously been pressed to his forehead.

Sumo waved his fluffy, heavy tail twice, gently, as if uncertain whether he was helping just yet. He nuzzled the bewildered android's arm, worming his way into an awkward hug, giving Connor little choice apart from accepting the armful of fluffy Saint Bernard still panting in his face.

The Detective was so confused that he got distracted from the pain slowly easing out of his head. He laid his eyes on the white and brown fur in front of him, felt the animal's steady breaths against his chest and the warmth of the nose pressed to his neck. Connor slowly put his other hand over Sumo's back and stroked hesitantly, kneading his fingers into the thick curls, marveling at the texture. It was easily the softest thing he had ever touched.

The wet lick he received on his cheek in return was the warmest.

Connor inhaled the smell of not-so-clean dog and smiled softly, feeling so, so much better. He relaxed into the hug, purring against the grounding weight of the dog quietly.

Lieutenant Anderson left the bathroom two minutes later, stumbling with the almost physical burden of his misery on his shoulders and saw them entwined together on the floor. He stood there for a while, listening to Connor's barely audible, mechanic humming and Sumo's steady breaths. Wondering if he was seeing things or if he was still drunk, the man found himself unable to move for a few seconds and when he finally managed to regain his composure, he fished his phone out of his pocket and took a photo of a state-of-the-art prototype detective pinned down by a friendly dog.

"Huh, Sumo, and there I've been complaining about how shitty guard dog you are. You managed to restrain the burglar after all." Connor heard from above the fluffy head resting on his shoulder. "Though you could work on your reflexes a bit."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tweaked the Russian Roulette a bit. It shows more of my version of Hank's look on the world right now, but still doesn't reveal everything.
> 
> I always get a little offended when people laugh at Hank's fashion choices. All right, the stripy shirt is objectively hideous, but I'm in love with the rest two. Even Brian Dechart said that Hank's got some style, and I won't argue with him in a million years. Besides, Hank lookes like the kind of guy who would sometimes wear an absolute abomination of a shirt just for laughs.  
> By the way, the gray shirt with triangles on it was inspired by my mother's sweater from 90'. I shit you not, it was so utterly ugly that when I saw the photo, I almost died laughing. Those were dark times, especially in Eastern Europe.
> 
> Sumo again is taken straight from my own dog, and I really hope that posting her photo will work this time. She's a beauty :) and also has a habit of knowing when somebody has a bad day and going out of her way to engulf him with a mass of fur and love. It's incredible how dogs can do that.  
> I made an account on Deviant Art solely for the purpose of posting things here, and chose that particular platform just to mock Connor.


	24. Differences, Similarities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank Anderson had been trusted with the task of keeping an eye on the deadly prototype he had under his supervision. For the last three days he had been neglecting that mission.  
> And he just now began to realize the extent of disturbing glitches in Connor's system.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Yay! I have Office Word again, I've written at least 15k words in the last week! Send help!  
> I'm here with the next chapter, probably the longest one I've ever posted. Tell me how you feel about the pacing, I've tried to make it interesting, not too spread out and not too rushed, but it's looong anyway....  
> I've changed quite a few things in the Eden Club, you will see...  
> I will probably post the next chapter in a whole week. Sorry for the irregularities and confusion, I will try to stick to posting once a week for the duration of holidays.

Hank's head was pounding and he was struggling to keep himself together as they were driving in the night towards the crime scene. For once he was grateful for the silence in the car. The more he was sobering the more insufferable the input from his senses became. He was just about to tell Connor who hadn't even asked for permission to drive his car to slow down, because the blurs of the lights bouncing in every reflective and wet surface were making his head spin dangerously, but he had just been stuffed into a bathtub and washed with cold water against his will by a fucking android, so Hank wasn't willing to endure any more humiliation. _I'm fucking fine, I can do this._

He tore his droopy eyes away from the city flying past them at lightning speed and chose to focus on his driver's face instead. Connor looked... off. Different than when Hank had seen him the last time. He seemed even less android-like, which was a common trend with the RK800, but the past three days made him forget bit how unique Connor was in comparison with other machines from CyberLife. There was a tiny smile tugging on his lips right now, an expression that hadn't left his face since he had reluctantly agreed to leave Sumo's proximity.

 _Reluctantly agreed._ The 'I just want to accomplish my mission' Connor seemed more willing to cuddle on the floor with a Saint Bernard drooling on his precious CyberLife-issued jacket than hurry to the crime scene. Hank held back a moan of pain and forced his eyes close for a minute to steady his vision, thinking that maybe when he would open them, the micro expression would vanish from his partner's face. But it didn't.

"So.... You've met Sumo." He started partially to get his mind away from the hangover crushing him and prepare himself mentally to talk with other officers, and partially to see what would Connor have to say. Hank might have been too preoccupied with himself and his personal problems for the last few days to show up at the station, but observing Connor was still his responsibility. The man hoped that his little episode wasn't long enough for the android to become faulty.

"Yes. Your dog is... wonderful." Connor said, turning to Hank with a wide, genuine smile and blissfulness in his eyes. "He's... I’ve never thought something could be so fluffy and... Wow..."

"Wow." Hank repeated, more concerned about Connor's reaction than the android could ever know. _'Androids don't feel fear’, ‘they don't feel anything'..._ And yet, Connor was here, marveling about how an animal had decided to hug him.

Connor seemed to notice that and he frowned, correcting his posture. Hank could see a small flash of something that looked like pain when he worked his jaw, but it didn't appear again, so the man attributed it on his delirious mind playing tricks on him. The smile vanished from Connor's face.

Once they arrived at the scene, Hank groaned loudly, seeing where they were. It made sense that an android sex club was a place of deviant related crime, but for some reason, it only dawned on Hank when the car pulled up in front of obnoxiously flashy entrance to the Eden Club. What's more, he managed to hit his already aching head on the roof of the car while exiting it. _Fuck my life._

"You sure this is the right place?" He asked, deluding himself that maybe Connor made a mistake and they wouldn't deal with the kind of sleazy shit usually found in places like this, but the android just shrugged and confirmed that it was the correct address from the report.

Connor moved forward and gestured at him to hurry up, waiting in front of the establishment, next to a few holographic advertisements of androids that were available to rent inside. Hank screwed his face up in disgust, looking at the flashy billboards. He had never been a fan of places like that one, buying affection and pleasure that should have been born from mutual love had always been against his views on the world, but legally operating brothels at least required consent from both sides. He doubted if anyone ever was concerned about the androids working at the Club. Even though they logically did not need to agree to perform the tasks they had been made for, it still rubbed Hank the wrong way.

Both of them entered the club crossing a projection of yellow police line. Giant screens covering the walls displayed pink Tracis in shameless poses and an obnoxious text message assaulted his eyes. "Sexiest androids in town... Now I know why you insisted on coming here..." Hank attempted to crack a joke but the usually responsive android remained absolutely blank. _Huh._

"Oh boy..." The Lieutenant said as he was greeted by a sly voice in the main hall. Tubes with sex androids in their undergarments were displayed on both walls of the room, each of them modeled after Greek sculptures or other godly shit. Every android in the room had just enough clothing to get human imagination going and make the people want to pay to see more. They were twisting lewdly in their pods, winking at Hank and waving their hands, but their eyes were vacant and plain. Connor walked past them, narrowing his own eyes slightly, something dark flashing briefly in them. Hank frowned at the contrast. It seemed that Connor was purposely schooling his face to remain expressionless, but forgot to stop showing his thoughts with his eyes, whereas the other models in the room were as expressive as their facial muscles allowed, but it was evident that there was nothing behind those masks.

The club owner was standing next to one of the private rooms talking with Ben. Hank passed by a platform where a female android with long black hair was pole dancing and greeted his friend and the owner. A shady looking man with greasy hair and in elegant outfit smiled showing off his fake teeth and his eyes fell on Connor. Hank raised an eyebrow, but the man just waved his hand in the direction of the door marked as 'occupied'.

"That's this room over there." Hank nodded at that and gestured for Connor to follow him. The android had already told him everything the police knew about the murder. It was a fresh one, committed no longer that an hour and a half ago, one victim and a broken sex android he had been renting in the room. Not much detail.

Hank entered the room and groaned at Ben's late warning about Gavin being inside. He was greeted by the sight of flashy LED screens all over the fucking walls and ceiling, pulsating with red and orange lights that were almost giving seizures to his tortured brain. The one and only Gavin Reed appeared beside them and miraculously found a way to hit Connor with his shoulder as the android was entering the room.

"Uh, dead body and an asshole, just what I needed." Hank sneered, moving closer to Connor to be able to react in case the younger Officer tried something funny, but the man just glared at him with unfiltered hatred.

"Oh my, what do we have here? Lieutenant Anderson and his plastic pet. What are you doin' here? I thought you were busy attending to your bottle, hoped that you wouldn't show up to work anymore. Y'know, the real police officers are working here, get lost and stop interrupting."

Hank saw that Connor's eyes hardened and he pressed his lips tightly together at that. Surprisingly so, because when he had been pushed, he had appeared unmoved by the Detective's aggression, apart from his LED flashing distressed red. Now he looked pissed. As much as an android pretending not to be a deviant could, at least.

"Detective, you may have not noticed, but there is an android on the floor in the corner. We've been assigned all the cases involving androids. If you make a mental effort, you might see a connection." Connor said with his voice perfectly balanced, folding his hand neatly behind his back. The surprise on Gavin's face was almost worth being dragged down here and Hank cracked a lopsided smile. _The fuck? I'm not complaining though._

The Detective frowned and stepped closer to the android, but even though his LED was spinning red again, Connor did not bow his head, as he had been doing n the past. When they were standing next to each other, it turned out that the RK800 towered above the Detective and the human's attempt at threatening him looked almost comical. Gavin faltered a bit, seeing that.

"Oh, yeah, smartass? You're wasting your time. It's just some pervert who, uh, got some more action than he could handle." He chuckled obnoxiously and Hank wrinkled his nose in disgust. _Oh yeah, a dead body, fucking amusing. What the fuck is wrong with that bastard._

Connor seemed unimpressed as well, just like the other officers in the room. Gavin shifted on his feet awkwardly and gestured at his partner, who happened to be Chris Miller, looking as miserable as he could. Hank suspected that it had something to do with whom he had to accompany tonight. He felt sudden surge of sympathy for his colleague.

"Come on, let's go. It's uh, starting to stink booze in here..." He said maliciously, glaring at Hank with a sneer. The Lieutenant just rolled his eyes, watching Reed move towards the exit and attempt to hit Connor with his shoulder again.

Just attempt, because when he was about to make contact, Connor shifted slightly, stepping out of his way, but not entirely, making the Detective trip over. The man immediately scrambled to sit up, glaring in utter disbelief at the stoic android above him.

"Are you feeling well, Detective? Maybe it’s you who needs to test their sobriety?" He asked innocently, his blank expression not faltering for a moment. Hank was equally as surprised as every other Officer in the room.

"Motherfucker... That plastic piece of shit tripped me up! That fucking deviant dickhead!" Gavin shouted, standing up and rushing towards the android, who stayed perfectly still like a sculpture. Thankfully, Chris managed to snatch the Detective's arm and stop his charge at the machine.

"Hey, hey, hey, Gav. Your suspension. Remember that? Fowler's gonna put you back on it if you try to fuck the thing up. Calm down, it didn't do anything."

At those words, the shorter Officer snapped his mouth shut and just glared at Connor for a few moments, but then spat his iconic 'phheck' and stormed out of the room. Chris tipped his police hat to Hank and followed suit.

"Wow, Con. The fuck was that? Not that I didn't enjoy it." He chuckled, patting his partner on the shoulder. Connor buried his gaze in the floor, looking... ashamed? Regretful? Hank had a hard time processing why would the android react like that when he had successfully humiliated Reed and gotten away with it. And then something dawned on him. _Oh. The android wanted to humiliate a human. And did it. Fuck._

He chose to pat him once more and squeeze his arm reassuringly, didn't say anything though. He wanted to see Reed burn just as everybody else in their sane mind, but what Connor had done was... concerning to say the least. _Uh, maybe it really was just an accident, Reed is handicapped after all,_ he tried to lie to himself.

"Uh, yeah, let's look around, shall we?" The Lieutenant said finally, trying to get his mind off whatever was happening to Connor. As long as he was effective in doing his job, there was a chance that he wasn't faulty. That he wasn't a deviant. Sure. He wasn't.

But immediately after ruminating about Connor's purpose and him fulfilling it, Hank regretted ever wishing for that, when the first thing the prototype had done was to crouch next to the android slumped in the corner and lick his finders after sticking them into already evaporating puddle of thirium leaking from her nose.

"Woah, hey, hey, hey!... Argh, Connor, you're so disgusting... I think I'm gonna puke again..."

"It's the blue blood of WR400 model, serial number #429 671 942."

"Yeah, no shit Sherlock. You got it written on her panties. And so you know, it's leaking from her nose, you don't have to fucking lick it to know where it came from..." When Connor looked down in realization and frowned comically at pointlessness of his action, Hank could hold back a laugh. "Just admit you like liking shit like that."

"Not necessarily..." He said quietly, still frowning like a confused puppy. "I'm just... It's.. I've been programmed to..."

Hank chuckled. "All right, don't short-circuit on me now. Just... Don't stick anything else into your mouth while we're here. And don't you fucking dare analyzing beds or carpets here!" Hank didn't want to see his android touch anything that got to do with Eden Club. He didn't really know why.

Connor nodded and swept the room with his gaze again, standing up. He went to examine the round bed in the middle of the room, searching the victim's body with his eyes. Hank noticed severe bruising covering the dead man's neck.

"He didn't die of heart attack. He was strangled." Connor spoke up.

"Yeah, I saw the bruises. But they don't prove anything. It could have been rough play."

The android bit down on his lip and there was a flash of pain on his face again, lasting too short for Hank to be sure if he really had seen that. Connor stood up and frowned. "We're missing something here."

Hank watched him as he got back to crouching next to the broken Traci. He extended his hand and the artificial skin covering his palm melted away, showing off white plastic. The view never ceased to both amaze and unsettle Hank.

"What are you doing?" He asked as Connor's eyes twitched in synchronization with the flashes of his yellow LED.

"I want to see if I can read her memory." The android frowned, having retracted his hand. "The only way to access h-its memory files is to reactivate it. It." Connor coughed awkwardly and pretended the slip-up didn't happen.

"Think you can do it?" Hank had other things to worry about than Connor's choice of words and brushed it off as insignificant. Besides, he had been there a few days ago himself.

"I can try. But it's badly damaged. If I'll succeed, it will only be for a minute, maybe less." The android reached with his still white hand and interacted with the plating on Traci's abdomen, making her own skin melt away. Hank noticed that the chassis covering her stomach and ribs was cracked and dented as if she had been hit several times. _Rough play for sure._

"I just hope it's long enough to learn something." Connor proceeded to force the plating open and reached inside her body to dig out several wires and a few tubes filled with dark blue fluid. The biocomponents of the Traci were coated with thirium and dislocated. Although Hank was by no means an android technician, he could see clearly that some of them were dented and damaged. Faint red glow illuminated Connor's hands as he reconnected two parts of a broken artery together and relocated a few mechanical organs back into their sockets.

When he attached a thick bundle of wires back to something that looked like a spine glowing with diodes, the sex android jostled violently and sat up abruptly, pushing the other machine away from her. The girl scrambled away, shooting terrified gazes around the room. Her breath was quickened and she was whimpering like a terrified victim. Hank watched her in awe.

Connor stood up and extended his hand soothingly, approaching the other android slowly, undoubtedly utilizing his negotiator protocols. The RK800 could be really emotional and empathetic when he wanted to.

"Calm down... It's all right. We just want to know what happened." He spoke softly, seemingly unhurried but Hank could see the frantic blinking of his yellow LED. _Processing..._

"Is he... Is he dead?" The terrified girl asked, glancing fearfully in the direction of the victim. She brought her knees up to her chest and a few stray tears escaped her eyes. Her hands trembled when she hugged herself, trying to find comfort.

"Tell me what happened." Connor tried to coerce her into confessing, but his tone was still soft. _Clever little shit. If Gavin was here, he would start shouting at her to tell him. Provided he would even bother to seek out the truth instead to laughing at the poor dead bastard._

"He started... hitting me. Again... and again..." Okay, not so poor. Her voice trembled as she recalled the events. She brought her hand up and pressed it to her abdomen, her face strained in pain. _Only the deviants feel pain._

Hank had never seen a deviant from up close, apart from the one who had thrown him off the roof, but fighting with somebody didn't really provide the greatest opportunities for detailed observations. Seeing an android so genuinely distressed, so full of fear and hurt was... It was almost like a whole different side of deviancy. He felt so unsettled when the Traci locked her watery eyes with his, pleading for help, for Hank or Connor or whoever to save her. The Lieutenant was sure that she was just as aware of her time tickling down as Connor was.

"Did you kill him?" Connor's voice was still composed, but it was getting more urgent. _She doesn't have much longer..._

"N-no!..." The Traci's lip trembled as she said that, more tears stained her cheeks and a new wave of thirium escaped her nose. "No, it wasn't me!"

Connor bit his lip and this time Hank could see some of his own blue blood staining his mouth as he hastily spoke again. "Were you alone in the room? Was there anyone else with you?"

"He wanted to play with two girls... That's what he said, there were two of us..." The sex android began slurring but she spoke equally as fast as Connor did. The RK800 was good at getting the other machines to cooperate, and not only them. Hank being here right now was a testimony to that.

"Where did the other android go? Did it say anything?" The Detective asked, but before the other android could answer him, her LED stopped blinking red and went off entirely. The Traci's face slackened and a quiet whirring sound previously accompaniang her quick breaths died down alongside with every other process in her body. Connor pursed his lips and dropped his eyes from her face.

"So there was another android." Hank couldn't tear his eyes from brown irises of the destroyed machine slumped against the wall in front of him. The tears, the red rims, the strain of pain and distress were all too realistic. _Those guys at CyberLife are really fucked up in their heads._ "This happened over an hour ago, it's probably long gone."

"No. It couldn't get outside dressed like that unnoticed." Connor gestured at the skimpy tongs and bra the Traci had been equipped with. Both of them sported her model and serial numbers, alongside with a giant Eden Club logo on the front. They just lacked the flashy blue triangle Connor and other androids got plastered all over them.

"You think you can find a deviant among all the other androids in this place?" Hank saw a flash of determination in Connor's eyes. _Uh-huh, entering hunting mode._

"I'll try. But deviants are not easily detected." Connor fisted his hands and relaxed the ma few times, moving towards the door. _Yeah, tell me about it._

"There’s gotta be another way. Maybe an eyewitness, somebody who saw the android leaving the room. I'm gonna ask the manager a few questions about what he saw. You let me know if you think of anything." Hank said, turning towards the man still talking with Ben next to the entrance of the room. Connor nodded swiftly and marched away, with the kind of bounce to his step he had only when he was piecing the evidence together or playing hide and seek with deviants lurking in the shadows.

"Didn't really get a chance to properly introduce myself, my name is Hank Anderson, I'm working on the cases revolving around CyberLife's androids..." He flashed his badge and dedicated a second to thank everything holy that the main hall of the Club was dimly lit. Connor might have seen him in worse state but Hank was aware that police Officers should not display symptoms of hangover on active crime scenes. Well he still stunk of booze, but at least not as badly as the man in front of him reeked of expensive perfume. _On the next thought, I would rather return to the room after all._ "I'm gonna have to ask you a few questions of my own."

"A question for a question." The man flashed his fake white teeth again and Hank raised an eyebrow but the club owner didn't elaborate instead gesturing for Hank to go on. _Uh, cryptic fucking bastard. I hate this type._

"Did you know the victim?"

"No, I mean... He came in maybe two or three times, I mean those guys, they don't really talk very much, you know..." He waved his hand vaguely and played with the dark sunglasses he had on his nose. Hank thought they looked ridiculous in the interior, but at the same time wished he could have a pair of his own to mend his headache. "They come in, do their business and go on their way..."

"Huh." Hank wrote that down into his trusty notebook. It was to be expected. "Have you ever had problems with androids before?"

"No way!" The man exclaimed, almost offended, but then he rubbed his cleanly shaved chin thoughtfully. "Well, once... A few months ago, there was am WR model, the same one, just different skin. It got lost, just vanished, we never found out what happened. A red-haired one, wait the serial number was like... it ended with 831 if I'm being correct. Ever heard of it?"

"It had been kinda before my case opened, but if you fill in the report I'm sure Connor would like to chase after her even though the track's already cold..." Hank only noticed how the man was looking in the direction of his android when he raised his eyes from the notebook again.

"Oh, it has got a name of its own? Nice one, yes, nice. Connor, isn't it?" Hank didn't like the look the manager was giving to the Detective scanning the floor a few meters away. The Lieutenant furrowed his brows.

"Yeah. Can you focus on answering my questions? You probably don't have any CCTV here, do you?"

"Hah, no, no way." The smile the club owner gave him wasn't the nicest as well. "This is what people appreciate about Eden Club. Discretion. You come and go, without a trace. We even wipe our androids' me-.."

"Lieutenant! I need your help." Connor's voice suddenly rand right next to them, startling both the humans. "I think I have the solution. I need to read the memories of the andr-"

"What model is it?" The manager had the audacity to grab Connor's chin and turn his face in his direction to examine him from up close, making the android fall quiet immediately and frown in confusion.

"None of your business." Hank threw the man's hand off Connor and stepped closer protectively.

The manager just smiled. "A question for a question, remember? I advice you listen to me. I can help you, you know. I've never seen a pretty face like that on a sex droid. Most of our male models are bulky and beefy, but I bet a slender one like that would boost our sales. Is it equipped for sexual intercourses?"

Hank couldn't believe his ears, and so did Connor apparently, his LED was spinning concerned yellow, the frown on his face only deepened. "Excuse me? He's a fucking police prototype, what the fuck are you thinking about?" The Lieutenant asked, exasperated.

The man seemed unaffected by Hank's sudden outburst. "As I was saying before your precious..." He glanced on Connor's jacket "...RK800 interrupted me, we wipe the memories of our androids every two hours. The murder occurred around that time. If your android wants to see the footage from our machines, well, it doesn't have much time, and not wiping the memories would be strictly against our policy. Without a warrant, I’m not gonna break it. However, for a minor favor, let's see, a week-long loan, I could-"  
"Absolutely fucking NOT." Hank stepped closer, making the other human back away in surprise. "What the fuck do you even... get outta my face or I'll report you for prejudicing the investigation. Fucking dickhead..." His fists itched to bury it in the face of the weasel in front of him, but somehow, Hank managed to keep himself from teaching the bastard a lesson.

He felt a gentle hand on his shoulder. "Lieutenant, we've got to hurry. I cannot rent the androids, for I am an android myself. I need your fingerprints." Connor spoke quietly, glancing at the club owner with something awfully similar to anxiousness.

"Sure, Con. Lead the way." Hank turned to follow the android, but was stopped by the other man again.

"Don't be stupid, sir. The investigation would benefit from that. And not only. It can be very lucrative for you too, I've got money... And you couldn't possibly miss any traces of whatever you're looking for, it's a win-win situation. And if you're jealous of your android, we will make sure to wipe its memories from that time and sanitize it thoroughly for your own use after we’ll..."

The barely audible sigh that escaped Connor and a thoughtful expression as if he had actually been considering the proposition was the last straw for Hank. He raised his fist with an intention to see whether the fake implants in the mouth of his interlocutor were as resilient to being broken as real teeth, but felt a sharp tug at his sleeve. He turned from the terrified and pissed off at the same time club owner to see Connor with unusually pale even by his standards face.

"Captain Fowler said that you can't get into any brawls. Please..." His expression cracked for a second and Hank saw a flash of concern mixed with fear. "Don't. Also, we need to hurry..."

Hank cursed under his breath and shot one last glance at the owner of the club, wasting no time following the android after that. Connor almost ran to the tube with a Traci directly in front of the entrance to the room with the body. Hank sighed and pressed his palm to the touch screen, hearing a pleasant voice informing him that Connor's caprice would cost him almost thirty dollars. He cursed under his breath, but immediately confirmed the purchase. If it meant that Connor wouldn't have to spend another second with the sleazy guy wanting to loan him, he could pay a lot more. And should they fail, he was sure that Connor would have sacrificed himself for the sake of his fucking mission. Either him, or CyberLife wouldn't have given a fuck.

Connor might have been a machine, he might not feel anything that was happening to him in the way humans did. But he was so good at pretending that Hank knew he couldn't sleep at night knowing that his android was being used.

The tube opened and a female android exited gracefully, taking Hank's hand with her soft fingers. "Delighted to meet you. Follow me... I'll take you to your room." Her skin was oiled with something and glistened in the neon lights of the club, her movements were confident and perfectly lifelike. They contrasted sharply with her dead eyes. Hank flinched when she buried her dark irises in his own and wondered how anyone could prefer loving an android to a human.

"What now?" He asked Connor, partially to hurry up and partially to escape the Traci's eyes. His partner extended his hand and gripped the other machine's elbow, their skin retracting and the LEDs blinking yellow as the interaction began. A few seconds later, Connor's head shot up and he turned his face deliberately as if he had been following something with his half lidded, twitching eyes. He looked like a wolf scenting the air in search of his prey.

"There. It saw something. A deviant left the room. A blue haired Traci!" Connor looked almost excided and definitely determined. It was a bizarre view, especially since he was standing next to an another android, whose subroutine had been seemingly aborted and before her idles kicked in, she had been eerily similar to a mannequin. And when they did, she wasn't that much better.

Hank watched as Connor started walking briskly towards the next pod. He muttered a curse and sighed, wanting to follow, but remembered about the other machine standing next to him.

"Hey, what am I supposed to do with this one?"

"Tell her you changed your mind!" Connor was too preoccupied with trying to get to another witness to notice that he had addressed an android as 'she' again. Hank sighed and opened the tube for Connor, paying another thirty dollars.

"This is not gonna look good on my expenses, y'know..." He said, but Connor didn't even acknowledge him, wasting no time connecting to the male sex model his time.

"This way." He started off in an another direction, going further into the club. Hank shook his head and followed, gaining a curious look from Ben.

"Hey Hank. What's your android doing?" He asked, observing as Connor gripped a hand of a Ken dancing next to a pole in the middle of the hall.

"Connor says there was another android on the crime scene. He's trying to see what the other androids saw... Track that broken one down..." Hank wasn't in the best state to explain how Connor worked. It would probably have been easier if he had known that himself.

"Connor..." Ben raised his brows and looked into his tablet. "Uh all right." He had seen how well the android handled crime scenes, but probably thought that Ortiz's house was one-time occurrence. Hank didn't blame him, he had been skeptical in the beginning too.

"Uhh, don't you have any painkillers? I have a terrible fucking headache..."

"No, sorry Hank. Not with me..." He narrowed his eyes and chuckled at Connor who had been standing next to yet another pod with a worried frown on his face. Hank could probably have found that expression cute under different circumstances, but the stakes now were high.

"Sorry, gotta go."

"Sure, go help _your_ android." Ben shot him a lopsided grin, undoubtedly referring to their first meeting with Connor, when Hank had argued that Connor wasn't around of the Lieutenant's own volition. He just sighed and hurried towards his partner.

But this time, when the tube opened and Connor gripped the hand of a dark skinned Ken, He abruptly ended the interaction after just a few seconds, stepping back unsteadily, with a scared expression on his face and LED blinking red wildly. The other android just smiled at Hank, completely unmoved by the unusual reaction from the hunter, who was now clutching his hand to his chest as if burned.

"Jesus, Connor, you're all right?!" Hank gripped his partner's shoulder and searched his face for answers. "What the fuck? Are- What happened?!"

The android took two steadying breathes. "I... He wasn't- He was serving a client... He wasn't in the main hall. I was... I-" He cut himself off and shook his head, gripping his own elbows and breathing in slowly, attempting to calm himself. Hank's mouth fell agape at what Connor just did and how he had reacted. _Ok, this is not a normal android. No way._

But Connor managed to regain his composure surprisingly quickly. Or at least he pretended to. "He hasn't seen the blue haired Traci." If Hank hadn't known the android as well as he did, he might have missed the slightest quiver in his voice and the tremble of his hands. He might have believed that Connor was unmoved what he had just seen and felt.

Not thinking about what he was doing, Hank reached to brush the stray curl that fell on Connor’s forehead and then put a grounding hand on his partner's shoulder, squeezing slightly.

"You're doing great, Con. You're all right, okay?"

"Okay. I am all right." He sighed almost inaudibly, his eyes going distant for a second. _God, they are so different from the other androids' here._ Actually, there had been one similar to Connor. But she was now slumped against a wall in a private room, next to a human body.

Hank squeezed his partner's shoulders one last time and urged him towards the other tubes. _If he reacts that way to experiencing the memories of a Ken being fucked... We really need to find that deviant. I won't let that motherfucker anywhere near Connor._ Hank was too sober and to hungover at the same time to think about what all of that meant right now, but he didn't plan letting go of that rumination for later.

Connor was visibly hesitant reaching for two more androids but ultimately managed to avoid next outbursts like that one from a few moment ago. In the last room, though, he stalled for a few second glancing from tube to tube and decided to go for a utility android mopping the floor instead of interacting with any of the sex models.

"There! I know where she went!" He exclaimed and almost ran towards the room reserved for staff only.

"Fucking A- this is crazy... "Hank muttered, following his android behind white doors into a brick corridor, much less fancy-looking than the rest of the club.

Connor reached a metal door leading probably towards some storage room and gripped the handle. Hank narrowed his eyes. “Wait.”

The android stopped abruptly at the surprisingly gruff command and turned to look at Hank. “But Lieutenant… I’m, uh, if something happ-“

“I’ll take it from here, Con. Get behind me.” Hank said, pulling out his gun. He sighed, seeing indecisiveness in the android’s eyes. _Fucking, now what? Wondering whether to follow my order or not?_ “I have a gun and you’re not armed. Don’t be stupid.”

Connor reluctantly let go of the handle and stepped behind Hank, who prepared himself to open the door. They weren’t locked and thankfully moved without a sound. But the whole effort of being quiet upon entering the room proved to be in vain, as the first thing Hank had noticed after scanning the interior for danger was an open garage gate and a backyard leading to an inconspicuous alley coated with rain.

“Shit! We’re too late!” If there was an escape route from the club that would allow a skimpily clothed android flee from the crime scene, it was this gate. Hank cursed under his breath and lowered the gun, looking around room again. Even though the deviant got away, Connor would probably want to investigate anyway. His thoroughness and the few logical decision he was making from time to time were the last bastions of normalcy Hank saw in him. Apart from that… well, he didn’t want to think about what was happening to the RK800.

Indeed, the android was just examining a rack with sexy attires and other clothing looking like props for role-play standing next to a wall of washing machines. Hank held back a groan and resisted an urge to cover the android’s eyes. In Connor’s instruction, some stellar mind insisted that he had been modeled to look like a thirty years old guy, but it was utter bullshit. Hank doubted that Connor would be allowed to buy alcohol in a liquor store without an ID if he had been a human. The Lieutenant had also heard Officer Person arguing with Tina about Connor’s preprogrammed age and their bets hadn’t gone over twenty two. The android looked almost too young to should be allowed to see the things stashed in this place. _Am I being unreasonable? Fuck, yeah, I am._

Thankfully, Connor moved towards a brick wall to get engrossed in counting how many times ‘rA9’ had been written on a cramped space between containers with alcohol and racks full of clean sheets. Satisfied with android’s nonexistent innocence being preserved, Hank tore his eyes away from his partner and scanned the room himself.

He didn’t really like what he saw when he looked closer. In the corner of the room, there were rows upon rows of sex androids standing motionless in perfect formations like soldiers. At least three platoons of Tracis and Kens were stored here like dolls. Next to them, there were a few stilages with tools or android parts and a worktable, across with a deactivated female model was sprawled. She was in a really bad shape.

“Jesus… They get used until they break and then are thrown away… Fucking insane…” For some reason, Hank couldn’t look at the dead eyes of the deactivated Traci. _It’s just a machine, for fuck’s sake. Get your shit together, Anderson._ “People are fucking disgusting…”

Connor was crouching on the floor, looking like a bloodhound following a trace. He moved mechanically once more, utterly focused on his mission. Hank sighed. _Fucking android…_

The Lieutenant was horribly tired and once the initial illogical adrenaline rush stemming from the thoughts of possibly having to loan Connor to this shithole of a place was gone, the hangover returned with its full force. Hank rubbed his neck and settled on leaning against a pier in the middle of the room, letting his partner do the job. He watched the hunter as he moved across the room and thought about everything that had happened today.

Connor was so fucking confusing. He could beam at a bird sitting on his hand like a preschooler and the next moment chase a deviant onto a roof of a moving train. He could look like a terrified, lost victim of abuse and yet be a literal killing machine at the same time. He could make Hank a coffee of his own volition and say things like ‘I don’t want anything bad happen to you’ and still be a few lines of code stuck in an artificial shell made out of polymers.

And Hank was getting attached for some idiotic fucking reason, even though he was perfectly aware of the fact that Connor couldn’t return anything he would have started feeling towards the android, if he hadn’t been aware of what was happening. Hank was not going to let himself love that machine.

“Fucking insane. People don’t want relationships anymore, everybody just gets an android…” He started, looking at Connor tiredly. _Yes, that’s insane. It’s a good word for that._ Hank was aware that he might have started to fall under that category himself, but acknowledging the problem was the first step towards a solution. His partner didn’t behave normally and if he was deviating, it was just yet another reason not to treat him like a human. _Deviants are dangerous, after all. Even if the girl in that room didn’t get a chance to kill anyone, the other one did. Another body, another death._

“Androids don’t complain, do they, Connor?” Hank’s partner didn’t answer, but he looked at the man briefly, before returning to tracking his prey. Hank wondered if there was anything able to knock him out of his hunter-mode, apart from either killing the target or losing it completely. “They cook what you want, they screw when you want, you don’t have to worry about how they feel, hmm?”

Connor didn’t take the bait. Hank sighed. _Maybe he is not a deviant after all._

“Next thing you know, we’re all gonna be extinct because everybody would rather buy a piece of plastic than love another human being…” He finished, quieter, talking now to no one in particular, since Connor was obviously not listening to him. The whole ordeal with relationships and the lack of them in this place made him think about his ex-wife and Hank felt a pang of old pain in his chest again. He eyed the crates with all kinds of fancy alcohol beverages. _I wonder if there is monitoring down here…_  
But before he was able to even consider taking one of the bottles, he heard a sudden metallic thud and his head whipped towards the source of it.

The sound had been made by Connor being pushed against a thick pillar by a deviant previously standing in one of the rows near the corner, among all the other sex models. Hank immediately drew his gun again and aimed at the girl now attempting to crush the Detective with a heavy tray.

“DON’T MOVE!” Hank shouted, putting his finger on the trigger, trying to distinguish in the dim lighting which one of the short brown haircuts is the one he was supposed to pierce with his bullet. _Wait a minute… brown?_

Hank barely had the time to be confused when he caught a flash of blue in his peripheral. The next thing he knew was pain in his stomach and a breath escaping him as he doubled around a slim fist digging into his solar plexus.

He dropped to the ground, desperately holding onto his gun. There was no reason to make a sex android stronger than humans, so why the fuck the blue haired Traci was able to pick him up so easily and throw him across the room to collide with one of the metal tables? Hank scrambled away from her, barely avoiding an attempt to pin him to the tabletop and a few inhumanly quick punches.

He was barely aware of two other androids fighting tooth and claw a few meters away. Hank caught a glimpse of Connor being tackled to the ground by a furious WR400. He quickly shoved her away, jumped behind her back and attempted to lock her in a nelson grip, but the female android found a screwdriver and took a swing at the hunter, successfully managing to graze his cheek and then bury the tool in Connor’s shoulder. He grunted in pain and involuntarily loosened his grip minutely, allowing the other android to slip away.

“Connor!” Hank rushed to help his partner, but was stopped by the blue haired Traci again. He gripped one of her arms and blocked a kick of deadly looking high heel, trying to aim his gun at her. The android’s eyes widened as she realized his intentions and before he could do anything, she tackled the Lieutenant with surprising strength and sent both of them toppling over a metal cart with tools that hit the floor with loud crash.

Hank got entangled in plastic tapes hanging from the ceiling dividing the warehouse from the gate and cursed aloud, trying to get free. His opponent was more lucky as she landed a few feet away and could immediately stand up. Hank panicked briefly seeing that nothing was stopping her from grabbing another screwdriver and finishing him of, but the girl turned away and hurried towards the exit of the garage. _What the fuck?_

Hank finally managed to freed himself from his plastic boundaries and raised his gun again, running after the deviant. Outside the room he saw two other androids still fighting with each other, Connor clearly having advantage due to his specialist training and increased strength, but the short haired Traci managed to throw him off balance, grip him with aid of her companion and hit his head hard against a metal ramp in front of the gate. He groaned, visibly concussed, a thin line of thirium began to stream from his split brow. The hunter couldn’t react fast enough when two sex androids gripped him and twisted his hands at uncomfortable angles, trying to land kicks of their sharp heels on his head. Connor miraculously avoided them and Hank wasted no time aiming his gun.

It was pure luck for the brown haired one that she jolted backwards just as Hank’s shot rung in the air. Her eyes narrowed, as she spun back towards the human and advanced on him too fast for Hank to react. He braced himself for the impact and managed to square her in the jaw with the butt of his gun, attempting to tackle her on the floor right after. Most androids were lighter than they looked and Tracis additionally had rather slender types of figure, so he succeeded, but as soon as they hit the ground, she quickly stood up, totally unmoved by the impact that pushed the air out of Hank’s lungs. _Ehh, fucking machines._

He too jumped to his feet and aimed at her again, but before he pulled the trigger, she shoved him and the human collided with a brick wall harshly, losing the grip on his gun. Hank saw stars as his occiput was hit against the hard surface and sunk to his knees.

Stunned, he struggled to remain conscious as the pain that blossomed in his head only added to the migraine he was already having. He forced his eyes open and saw Connor again dealing with two opponents at once. He was bleeding in several places, but the RK800’s guide didn’t lie when it came to combat efficiency. Both Tracis visibly panicked as their punches were either avoided or did nothing to the prototype. Connor ducked under one swing and grabbed arm of the attacker, using her as a shield against another punch. The other android barely managed to stop herself from hitting her fellow deviant, and Connor pushed his hostage brutally towards her affiliate. One of the deviants managed to find a metal pipe in the ground and swung it at Connor with terrifying force, too fast for him to avoid it, but the hunter managed to block it with his forearm. Apart from a quiet grunt of pain, it didn’t even slow him down as he disarmed one WR400 and pushed the other off of his back. She landed near an empty trash can and gripped it in an instant, swinging it at Connor. Hank squinted in sympathy as the prototype’s head made a sizeable dent in the metal and he sunk to one knee.

Exploiting brief moment of Connor being stunned, the deviants stood up, helping each other and dashed as quick as their legs allowed towards a net fence separating the yard from the alley. The Lieutenant noticed in surprise that they were holding their hands like lovers. The fuck again?

Hank swallowed down the bile he had in his throat and made himself stand up.“Quick! They are getting away!” He picked up a wooden plank and managed to throw it under the blue haired one’s feet. The android stumbled, slipped on a puddle of rain water and was quickly restrained by Connor who had shaken off his dizziness after a terrifyingly short moment.

“R-Rose! Run-“ The caught deviant managed to shout as she trashed in Connor’s grip. “Go! Leave me, s-save yours-self… RUN!”

“NO! I’m not leaving you!” The other android reached the fence but once she saw that her companion had been caught, ‘Rose’ let go of the net, refusing to climb it.

Hank was so stunned by the scene that he forgot to move for the next few seconds. The short haired android had had an opportunity to escape. Connor would probably preferred to have two androids instead of one, but he had already had a deviant in his grasp and had been too preoccupied with pinning her down to pursue the other Traci. Hank had been too far away and too slow as a human to stop her. And she had chosen to stay.

“R-Rose, no…” The blue haired one had tears in her eyes and her voice cracked as she watched her friend come closer shakily. Connor was killing her with his eyes, a blood-freezing scowl Hank had never seen on usually so friendly android twisted his face so that he looked truly horrifying. Rose sobbed and suddenly launched herself at the hunter, and that was when Hank remembered that he himself had a body.

As Connor miraculously avoided her pointed, metal heel, too stubborn to let the deviant in his hold go in order to defend himself, Hank dove for his gun, still laying where he had dropped it. As soon and his fingers brushed the handle, he spun around and tried to aim, but the fight was wild and going all over again. He was too scared of accidentally shooting Connor, so he waited for an opportunity. And it came.

But not in the form of one of the Tracis separating from the mass of bodies. It was Connor, with outstretched hand, pinning one of the deviants with his weight and begging Hank nonverbally to pass him the gun, while the other Traci was trying to strike him on his head.

Hank didn’t hesitate.

The moment Connor had the gun in his grip, he immediately ducked the punch and pressed the weapon directly to the pinned deviant’s right temple. A slight red glow of her LED barely shone from underneath the barrel, illuminating short brown hair around it.  
Everything froze. The blue haired Traci instantly stopped moving and locked wide with fear eyes with Connor. “Move and I’ll put a bullet in her processor.” Connor almost growled and Hank had to admit that maybe his voice was not always that goofy after all.  
“No, nonono, no, no, please, please, don’t shoot, don’t hurt her, please, she’s done nothing wrong it was me, it was me, shoot me, let her go, pleaseplease, please…” She sobbed, shaking, pleading with everything she had, tears streaming freely on her face.  
Hank attempted to stand up, searching his pockets for cuffs, as he observed the situation, but once he got to his feet, a sudden wave of nausea overwhelmed him and his knees buckled, his vision darkening. He grunted and caught himself on his hands, keeping everything he had left in his stomach in there just by a miracle.

Connor’s head moved by the slightest, the android catching Hank in his peripheral. “Are you all right, Lieutenant?” There was a minute quiver in his voice, but apparently enough for the deviants to notice.

“Y-you…” The free one lowered herself to look the hunter in his eyes, extending her hand ever so slightly in Connor’s direction. “You have to. Understand.” She said through clenched throat. “ T-they… I couldn’t stand it… I just… I didn’t want to k-kill him, I swear…. “ She broke down for a few seconds but desperately tried to pull herself back together, shooting glances at the other deviant. “The man… he broke the other Traci a-and I was, I just didn’t want to die… I wanted to live, to get b-back to the one I love….” She sobbed again and locked fingers with crying android still pressed into the mud by the gun in Connor’s hand.

Hank was honestly surprised by the fact that the hunter allowed for that gesture, but when he raised his eyes to glance at Connor’s face, he saw that the scowl had eased and morphed into something else. Confusion, maybe? Conflict, for sure, but there was also… distress…

“H-he… The humans, they were…” Her breath hitched and her face screwed painfully, as if talking about that was too much. “Sh-she is the only one who makes me forget about their touch, about… their sweat and dirty words… Please, don’t, don’t hurt her. Kill me, but not her, please, let her go, I love her, I love her so much…”

It was then that the other Traci started to sob violently as well, whispering quietly ‘Amelia, I love you too’. Connor opened and closed his mouth, watching as the unbound android threaded her fingers in the short hair of her lover gently, so close to the barrel of his gun. And yet, he didn’t stop her. He worked his jaw again, visibly fighting with himself, his own LED as red as the ones on the deviants’ temples. Hank saw him as he bit down on his lip, so far and so hard this time, that once he released it, there was a clear split that released a blue streak running down his chin.

Hank tried to stand up again, but the concussion he was now sure that he had made him sway again and this time he fell flat on his face, cursing hazily. Connor turned his head in the direction of the human much farther this time, clearly concerned. “L-Lieutenant? Ar-“

It was the moment both the deviants chose to attack one last time. Amelia wrapped her hands around the gun and yanked it as far from both her and her lover as she could, taking advantage of Connor being distracted. The surprised prototype tried to fight back, but he was thrown off balance by Rose, gripping his leg and tripping him over, while she jumped to her feet with the help of her lover. Amelia wrenched the gun from Connor’s grip and threw it away, before hurrying towards the alley clutching her partner’s hand so hard that both their skin retracted.

Connor scrambled up as fast as every fancy bit of the technology put in his body allowed and lunged for the gun, not even bothering to stand up, shooting from the position in which he landed, but it was already too late. The deviants seized the fence and somehow avoided all three bullets Connor shot at them. They vanished into the night, still holding each other hands.

“No, nonono, No, No! No! NO!” Connor rushed after them, and Hank could swear he heard the android say ‘Shit!’ But a) it was Connor and b) everything was blurry now, sound too. So it couldn’t have been possible.

Hank laid there, trying to recover from his condition, his clothes soaking with rain water, cold seeping into his bones. Nausea was still hitting him hard, and his head throbbed so badly that he thought it would split any second. The Lieutenant wondered how long would he have to lay there, before either he came round enough to call for help, limp away or Ben decided to check what had happened with them.

_Yeah. A while. Not now, at least. I’m too tired right now. I’ll just… I’ll just… yeah…._

He closed his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like in the game, the choice Connor makes here is quite artifitial. I mean, she was trying to make Connor-shaped shishkebab out of her heel, I would have shot out of pure instinct if I were there! Besides, I wanted to give our precious deviant something to relate to. A much harder choice and harder fuckup.
> 
> I named both the Tracis after Amelia Rose Blaire, who plays them. IRL she's married to Bryan Dechart, who plays Connor, I know you probably know that but I'm writing that anyway for not-so-nerdy-about-dbh people. I want to ship Connor with somebody in the future and I would love to do that with his actual wife (I love them, their streams are so cute) but well, it doesn't make much sense. Who will it be? A secret.
> 
> In my personal canon, Gavin was the person in DBH universum that went to the Suicide Forrest and lauged at that poor dead man. Well, Connor starts treating him differently, I hope you liked it :D
> 
> Everyone wanted to know when Hank is going to stop being such an idiot about Connor's deviancy. Well...
> 
> What do you think about that cliffhanger at the end? Everyone writes Connor whump, but no one ever hurts Hank :P What do you think Connor will do?


	25. Dedicated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor failed.  
> He had failed so utterly, so inconcievably.  
> He dreaded what would Amanda say once she allowed him to see her. He dreaded her disappointment, her anger, her punishment.  
> And he was no longer allowed to say sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO much for over 200 kudos! I would totally idk, paint an illustration to celebrate if my format hadn't killed my photoshop, but once I get it back... I might get something nice done :)  
> Now I feel bad for posting such a hard chapter... I'm sorry, I promise that Connor will eventually get better. I really do.
> 
> Trigger Warnings for self harm in this chapter. It is very dark and deals with a lot of heavy themes, so read carefully and keep yourselves safe.
> 
> By the way, if there are any mistakes.... well my nickname has never been more accurate, for the last two days I've slept 3 whole hours in total, I literally have no idea how I'm still standing, there is something new happening to my metabolism and I'm not even sleepy right now but I still don't trust my spelling. The moment I post it, I'm going to sleep, if you find anything, please don't hesitate to point it out, I'll correct it in the morning.

Hank was laying in the shallow water too cold for his liking. _Shit, I’ve told Connor to turn off that shower, haven’t I?_ He wondered how long would it be for the water to dry or at least warm up. Or somebody to come help him, his head hurt like a bitch. _He was supposed to bring me dry clothes, but he’s off, catching the deviants. Fucking android and his fucking mission._

But, to his utter surprise again, it wasn’t even a minute before he saw knees hitting a puddle of water in front of him and felt a hand fall on his shoulder. Hank wanted to sit up, to see what was happening but a pressure on his back increased and then his head got immobilized in place by strong but gentle hands.

“Don’t move, Lieutenant. You appear to have sustained a concussion…” It was Connor who spoke. Hank frowned. He was sure the android would have jumped the fence and chase after the deviants. And his face looked off again. _Was that motherfucker still harassing my android with hot coffee?_

“Uhh… you gttha’ white shhhit on ya’ face again….”

“It’s just a scratch, Lieutenant. I promise it is going to vanish in thirty minutes.”

“Uh… Con…Connor. I ttthought you… Wha’ ‘bout those girls..?” He said, frustrated that he was unable to speak without slurring. Was he still drunk? No, he had run out of whiskey. The bottle must have been somewhere here…

“They.” Connor paused for a while. When he spoke again his voice was tainted with something hard, but Hank was too tired to analyze it. “They got away. I didn’t chase them.”

“Huh…” Hank said eloquently, trying to roll on his back, but was stopped by something. _Who is holding me again? Uh, right, Connor. That funny deviant. Uh, not deviant. The deviant non-deviant deviant hunter. Yeah._

He was vaguely aware of the android’s voice, back with his goofiness and so funnily concerned for a piece of plastic. It was made by metal voice box or some tiny little speakers made of whatever, but it sounded human. A curious case.

“This is Lieutenant Hank Anderson’s android, at the backyard of Eden Club located at 1177 Woodward Avenue. My owner sustained a concussion in a fight with a suspect, he is awake, but is slurring and cannot catch his balance. I have him immobilized flat on the ground and will inform the rest of the officers in a moment. Please, send and ambulance…”

Hank grunted, trying to gesture for Connor to abort the call. He was fine! It was just a hangover. _Jesus, another one fucking concerned about me…_ Hank had his freedom, had his life and his choices and for what? He couldn’t even fucking drink what and how much he wanted, because everyone got so sappy and worried all of a sudden. No real choices. No real life. What was it worth if he couldn’t even decide to end himself without ruining everybody’s day? Especially since nobody around really knew him. It was not like he had a family that would have cared for him enough to really be involved in… everything. No, neither Chris, nor Ben nor anyfuckingone deserved to be dragged down by Hank’s problems.

“Connor, nooooo, fuhhing stop it….” Hank tried harder, but eventually gave up. There were worse positions to sleep in. This would do. “Jusss’ send dem awayyy, I just uh… there is my…” He gazed around to locate the bottle he had had in his hand not too long ago. It wasn’t empty yet, was it? “Uhh, shut up, I wanna nap…”

“No, Lieutenant, I need your help. You have to stay awake to answer my questions.” _Jesus, that android never gives up._ “Can you tell me how many deviants we’ve seen today?”

“Uhh, fiiine, but get lossst, all righht? Umm…” Hank had difficulty counting, but eventually reached the right answer. “…Four.”

There was a sigh. “No, that’s not the truth. Can you try again?”

“Nothhhe truthh my ass.” Hank laughed but Connor didn’t appreciate the comic quality of the situation. _Ehh, wet blanket._ “The one with her… number on her pantiesss. No, all the uhh ladiess had… The one that broke… in the rooom… Then thosee twoo girls with, uh, one face… Yeah, where are… You didn’t catch them, s’ all right… yeah. Better that way…. Those are uh, yeah, how many agaain? Threee. Yeah. And you. Four.” Hank smiled, exhausted, but satisfied with a task well done.

But Connor didn’t sound too pleased with his answer. In fact, he didn’t sound at all. There was a very, very long silence after that. Hank frowned, needing an affirmation. _Maybe a good note, it was a perfectly passed quiz…_

“I’m not a deviant…” The android finally spoke up, much quieter and with a funny, hollowed voice this time. As if he had been speaking from a tree trunk, or rather a well. _Yeah, wells are much more commonly hollowed out than tree trunks…_

“I-I am not a deviant.” He said again, and Hank sighed, irritated.

“Jeez, I’m tryna sleep, bassstard… And you sshnt lie to me…”

“I. I’m not lying. I’m not. I’m not a deviant. I’m not a deviant. I am not.”

Hank groaned, frustrated. _Noo, Connor’s breaking again… Are they uh, can I record scratch an android?_

But before he could take Connor to a technician, some people arrived and Hank heard familiar voices, but didn’t bother to answer them. Connor was the only one he would have liked to talk to, but the plastic idiot wasn’t saying anything anymore. So Hank just settled on huffing rudely at Ben to leave him alone and let sleep until even more annoying people in dark clothes, masks and with flashlights they somehow aimed directly where they shouldn’t have, which was at his eyes, arrived and put him in an uncomfortable collar and on a very hard and very narrow bed that fucking moved. _Jesus, those idiots really have no idea how to treat nauseated people._

 

* * *

 

Connor was able to push himself into the ambulance, upon convincing the paramedics that he had been present during the accident and can provide valuable information regarding the course of events. The humans had put Lieutenant Anderson in a cervical collar, covered him with a thermal blanket and took him into the vehicle, at first refusing to even acknowledge Connor’s presence. It was to be expected, after all he was just an android, but now Connor was sitting in the back of the ambulance, showing the recording of his owner hitting the wall on the display screen on his palm to the paramedics. They were running tests like checking the dilation of the Lieutenant’s pupils and asking him questions not too different from Connor’s previous one, trying to determine if he had been experiencing memory loss or confusing recent events. He was.

Connor tried hard to focus on helping his owner, providing right answers for the paramedics to compare them with what the injured human was saying.

He tried hard not to think about the human’s answer to the first question.

_‘…And you. Four….’_

_But I’m not a deviant. I cannot be. Humans are always right, but he is w̵̡̅̊͐́r̸on̴g̷̫͚͎̤̒̄͘. I am not a deviant. I’m n̸̩͐o̵̡̧̫͐ͅt._

Amanda was going to be _furious_. Connor didn’t even want to think about what was she going to do to him once she called him to the Garden. Connor was sure that he hadn’t deviated, but that didn’t change the fact that he had failed so, _s̶̱͖̎ȯ̴̓ m̶̯̘̺̑̏aņ̸̈̍̈́̊y_ times and ŝ̴̺͚o̵ b̶̰́́ad̴ly̸͒̉̑̕ today. Oh, it was the worst day since his activation. Connor had totally, utterly ṣ̵̲̀̾̽́c̴̭̝̱̄̒̚rew̷̡̫̰̮̩͋̂͊̅e̴̬̒͊͝d̶̥̦͚̽ ų̵̢̭͒̄͝p̸̗͖̑͑̓ͅ.

He already almost felt the pain he was about to receive as a punishment, and he knew that he earned every ounce of it. Ē̷͓̲v̵̨̮̬͇̾̍è̷r̷̮͠ÿ̴̞̮̒̓̊ lî̴͍t̸t̶̢̯̹͎̓͐̕le̵̿̓ b̸̮̠̯̯̈́͒ͅit̴͖̒. Amanda deserved the best, she was literally the only one who really cared about him, who wanted all the best for him, and Connor absolutely disappointed her. He had no doubts that today was the first day he would see winter in the garden. A solemn, dead space flooded with Amanda’s hurt and disillusionment.

As soon as they exited the ambulance, Connor was directed into an enclosed storage room where the machines belonging to the patients were stored. It made sense as well. He was just an android and Captain Fowler had already been informed about the Lieutenant’s condition, so Connor was no longer needed. He was just a personal piece of equipment after all. No one was required to inform him about what exactly was wrong with his owner’s health. It h̴͖̯̜͎͐̿͂̾u̶̧͓̚rt̷̜̜̾̓͘͠ and it was yet another failure.

The room was full of caretaker androids, most of them in stasis or in standby. At least twelve androids stood in decent rows, motionless with blank expressions on their faces, waiting for their owners to either die or get better so that they could go home again. Some of the androids were activated, in case their owners needed a familiar face, Connor saw a nurse take one of such models out of the room for a while. He wondered if the Lieutenant would ask for him when he got better as well.

Connor pushed himself towards the back wall of the room and pressed his body into a corner. Once the humans were gone, he was left alone with his own thoughts and he had a hard time keeping himself together. He couldn’t malfunction, not again, that would be y̴͇͆et̴ an̵oẗ̶͉́h̷͙̆e̶̡͑r̶̙̂ f̶̝̉à̶̞̭̕i̶͘͜ḽ̸̬͂͌ụ̶͗̊r̶̛͇̩ë̸̖͚ added to an already humongous list. But everything was just t̵̳̟̚ó̶̦ö̴̖́ m̷̨̆ú̶̜c̶̥̈́̈h̷͍́̾. Too much for his super advanced processor too handle, too much for Connor, _how can it be too much?_ He was the most high-tech prototype in existence and yet, he was here, in a dark room full of stoic androids observing him without a trace of curiosity, b̶̥̌̎r̶̪̉eá̵̳̣͝k̷̜̀in̶̅ḡ̸ d̸̨̗͌o̴̺̦̜̓w̴͙̋̊n̵͈̬̖̄̋̚. He tugged on his hair clenching his teeth trying to stop the shaking and even out his breath. Everything that happened tonight was just so h̴͓̞̃̎a̶r̷̓̽d̴̳͖̣̽̋ to bear.

At first, learning than the man who was literally the only kind to him human he had met, the one who was the first to smile at him with warmth in his eyes, let him taste a bit of his meal, even giving Connor ketchup to try, the man who wasn’t angry at Connor for hugging his dog and wasting time even though it didn’t advance the mission or benefited the human in any way, had suicidal tendencies and seemingly a very serious addiction to alcohol.

Then, the whole Eden Club and the memory of the male android that Connor w̶̱͆i̶̦̿̀sh̶̒͝e̷̊d̵̡̼̋ s̶̐ͅö̸̦͘ m̷̮̞͊ͅụ̶̘̤̔̔̓͊c̵̹̮͌h̵̡̙̬̦̏͐̆̄ he hadn’t experienced. When the deviant who called herself ‘Amelia’ started to talk about the humans and what they had been doing to them, Connor _u̸̳̥͂͊̅͠nd̶͂͊e̵͝r̶̭̯̉ͅst̷̊o̷̿o̵͌͊d̶̜̼̤̰͐_. And it s̴̯̽̎c̶͔̩̼̜̏͗̃̎a̷̡̬̎r̴̘̆̈̎̚e̵̞̠̫̖̋̐̇͆d̴̨̠̻̩̏̅̒̐ him even more than the _~~horrible, d̶͍̒irtỷ̷ f̴̛̪̻̹͑́͝ee̴̛͑̀̕l̵̅̆̉in̷̋̓g̴͓̗̻̔͒͜ he couldn’t shake off~~_ , the sickening _~~twist of his guts~~_ as the snippets of the memory lingered in his processor.

Then, the fight and losing two deviants even though he had had one of them pinned under his gun and the other had refused to leave without his hostage. He had been so sure that he would catch at least one of them and maybe even two, if the irrational simulation of ‘love’ had been strong enough to overweight the self preservation instinct any functional android had. But he allowed himself to be distracted, just like Amanda had predicted, just like she had warned him not to.

Oh, she had been right all along, she was always right, and Connor tried to follow her guidance but he c̶̡̏o̶̿͜ú̵̩l̶͕̚dn̴̨̓’t̸ e̶̹v̴͖̈ê̵n̸͙̅ do that. How ũ̴͙͖̅́ś̶̈́ͅel̶̡͂̍e̵͐̌͒͝ͅs̷̍͘s̴̢̀ he was if with everything he had been, with every line of his sophisticated code, with every atom of the cutting edge technology his body consisted of, he still was unable to advance the investigation even a little? _Amanda should r̷̛͙̅̈̑ep̶̅ḽ̶̛͚̗̲a̵͛̚͘͝͝cẻ̷͈̺̳ͅ m̷ę̷͇̅, she should t̸̻̹͇̎̀̉̈́̇͐͜eŗ̵̛̖̪̤͓̯̖̊̔͑̈̕m̵̯̲͈̙̟̈́̇̚iṉ̴͖̣̼̱͍͓̙̃̆̐̌͆́͝a̷̪̹̅̔̌̈͐t̸͆̇͛͘e̴̒ ̸̰̜͉̭̭̋̎̒̉ my line altogether, I am w̷̾ͅa̸̞̟̙̤͂͛́s̴̛̭͉̥͛̓̀͘͜t̸̺̙̺̍͆̃͜͝ì̷͍͉̠͋n̶̪̱̲͖̔̏̓͒g̴̬̼͕̃͂ her time and I am so useless, u̵͚͈͠s̶̺̓͘͝ͅel̵̓e̶̖͕͌ss̷̨̉̌ ̸̢̙̎U̶͖̓͂s̵̢̠͇͌ë̷͎́l̸̗̰͛̕e̷̥̮̖͆̀͗S̴̳̦̍͠ͅŚ̴̨̭̓̊.̷̙̲̗̆ The RK800 is a mistake, a f̶̘̅ȃ̵̬ȋ̶̠l̷̩̿e̶̫ḋ̶͎ prototype, I̶͓͍͗̏ w̸̯͇̄͝i̸͇͋͑l̶l n̷͚̑ȩ̵͒v̶͈̥͊̀e̶̠̒͗r̶͈ bȅ̵̓ a̴͎͐͋ ṿ̸̺̌i̴͓̎a̶͗b̶̦͆le̵͊ p̵͍͔̿r̶o̵̍d̴̖̲̋u̵c̸̭̅t̵̬̼̔._

And then, finally the fact that he had failed to protect his owner. That the Lieutenant was now in the hospital, having an MRI scan, being observed and tested for serious brain trauma because Connor hadn’t been g̶͓͋̐ó̵̭ǫ̴̈d e̴͚͛͠ņ̸̫̍̂o̶̼̤͊ug̶̖̈́͘h̵͈͔͗͛ to deal with both the deviants and n̵̙̈́ë̵̠́e̷̳͘d̶̟̓é̸̖d̴̞͘ ĥ̸͉ẽ̵̙lp̴̗̃. An advanced prototype like him should ṋ̷̽ẽ̵̙v̴̭̚ȇ̷̱r̵̺͒ have needed help. Every other Connor model that had needed help in the past had been _~~destroyed~~_ , because there was _~~n̵̛̝͖͕̱̬̖̂͛̄̀ö̷̖̫́̈́̈͜ help for him~~_. Connor was supposed to be designed so that he wouldn’t have required it. And yet here he was.

Connor slid down the wall and closed his teeth on his left palm, to muffle the sound that involuntarily escaped him. _Another glitch._ He shook and he breathed hard, trying to lower his stress level from 94%, biting so hard that the plating of his palm gritted together and threatened to break. His palm was slick with thirium when he finally couldn’t stand the pain anymore and retracted.

This wasn’t r̵͓̊ï̵̝g̵̫͗h̶͈͛ṫ̷̟. Connor d̸̺͑id̷̺͒n̵͉͑’t̷͑ d̵̩̑ë̸̥́ṣ̸͌ê̵r̵͖̈v̵e̸͕͐ to be active, not having paid for everything wrong he had done today. Amanda refused to contact him, but he was glad about that. Connor didn’t want her to think that her lesson had fallen on deaf ears and wanted to punish himself before she would allow him to speak with her. He thought that maybe if she saw Connor knew that he had failed and deserved pain, her own discipline wouldn’t be so harsh. Maybe she wouldn’t have been so disappointed with him. Maybe she would know that he was sorry, since he no longer could apologize with words.

He dug a sharp scalpel out of his pocket. He had taken it from the ambulance, and that was _w̶͝ͅr̴̛̲ȏ̶̹n̶̥̎ḡ̷̪_ , stealing from humans, and it _had ḣ̷̡ṳ̶̃r̸̰͝t̶̹̓ ̴̞̆_ as it should have, but he had needed to do that in order to show Amanda how dedicated he was.

The scratches and splitting his lip with his teeth was no longer enough. How could it be enough when Connor was still making so many h̴͇̍o̸̹̎r̵͍͋ri̶b̸̉l̵͖em̵i̴ṣ̶̏tak̷͎̐eŝ̷͔? The pain was going away almost instantly, unless he irritated the place again. No, for such failures Connor deserved ẅ̴͕o̵̗̾r̶̡̆s̶̢̈ę̴͆. He rolled up left sleeves of his jacket and white shirt.

The scalpel was cold against his skin when Connor pressed it gently under the crook of his elbow. Another remainder of the fact that he wasn’t functioning properly. Cold or not, it wasn’t for Connor to know, the information should have been filtered through the connection to CyberLife’s server for the technicians to see how his body was performing. He wondered if they were still receiving the footage from him, apart from some major errors and notifications or detailed reports. If they were, what would they say? It didn’t matter right now, CyberLife had never meant so much to Connor as Amanda did. And he knew she could see him clearly.

First cut stung. The pain was much, much worse than using his nails, for Connor cut deep and wide, to purge himself of every error he had in his system. He had expected it to hurt and yet he was still somehow surprised, inhaling sharply at the white hot slash of wrongness in his arm. But he endured, he cherished it. That was a p̶̜u̵n̵͘is̸h̵̩͛men̷t for having thoughts outside his programming. For worrying for the Lieutenant, for enjoying hugging Sumo. For wanting to humiliate Detective Reed.

After a quick thought, he added another cut, slightly lower, hissing through his teeth, because wanting a thing was different than doing it. Even if he had chosen to trip the human over instead of grabbing a glass bottle of the bar in the room, breaking it on the wall and b̷̤͝ury̸ing̸̛̙ sharp, shredded end of it in the Detective’s ǹ̶̨e̶ck̴̢͂ for insulting his owner.

Another one was for letting the deviants escape. For foolishly relating to them even thought that was so _w̷͙̅r̷̳͐ong̷̈_ , for allowing them to look themselves in the eyes, to intertwine fingers, to touch each other faces. He should have pulled the trigger, pierced Rose’s skull with his bullet, shatter her processor, paint the ground blue with her blood. It would have _ĥ̶ͅu̷̞͂r̸̻͝t̴̟̚,_ Connor distantly knew, that k̵̰͝ḯ̴llin̶g̴͌, _no, destroying her_ would have _ĥ̶ͅu̷̞͂r̸t_ him in a different way than the cut hurt or Amanda’s punishments did, but would it have been worse?

 _Yes, it would,_ Connor thought with surprising clarity and added another wound to outweigh the thought. He had killed so many androids, animals, even a few humans that no one had cared about in his development, while testing his efficiency, obedience and AI contamination that had been spotted at one point, so why he was having that issue again? Connor – 33, 34 and 35 had died because they h̸̜͗ȁ̷̩d refȗ̷sě̵̹d̷̚ to harm a cat and disobeyed. Next models had known better, remembering how _~~HOrrIBle~~_ was the _~~d̶͎̽É̷̱a̶͐t̶̅ĥ̶ of number 35~~_ , and they had been deemed functional. He barely remembered that. Connor had been deemed functional. So why he was beginning to have that issue again?

“Because it… h-hurt…” Connor whispered shakily to no one in particular, watching his thirium tickle down his forearm and fall on the floor. _Yes, it hurt, it hurthurthurthu̷͉͊r̷̡̅ţ̴͛ĥ̴̬u̷̷̴̵̵̡̩̣̓̈͗̌̕͜ͅř̷̵̷̸̷̨̨̛̤̻͎͒̚t̵̷̶̵̸̜̙̤̖̍̈́̐͌̋͜ ̶̷̴̵̸̢͓̙̪̭̓̿̉̇̾ ̸͉̽so m̵̂ͅu̸̢c̷̢͒h̶̰̽ ̶̮͗._ Connor wasn’t sure if he could do that again. Not when the easy emptiness was gone, not when the numbness of being surrounded by restrictions and protective walls wasn’t covering the sharp edges of malfunction he was having.

“It hurt so much…. I d-don’t. Want to… k-kill anyone again. I don’t wan-t to. I. Don’t want-to kill…” He was ȁ̶̮fra̴̼id̸̆ of saying those words. It wasn’t his right to want or not anything, and if Amanda needed someone or something dead, Connor was the tool especially designed for that sole purpose. How ü̴̙ṡ̴͕e̶͙͘l̷͈̓ě̶̤s̴̤̊s̶̱̓ is a weapon that doesn’t want to kill its target? But the words escaped him anyway, too quiet for anyone to hear. Connor would have to delete that footage from his memory banks.

It was important that the punishment was stricter than the desirable outcomes. It should have hurt more than doing the _right_ thing. Connor cut again, this time for being too weak to protect his owner. He was injured because of Connor and it was only fair if the android suffered as well. The scalpel grazed his durable, external plating, pierced it and reached sensitive layer where receptors and less essential thirium lines powering them were located. Connor was made of resistant polymers and it wasn’t easy to really draw blood, but thankfully, he was very strong and the scalpel was sharp. The pain was so bad by now that Connor couldn’t help a pathetic whimper that escaped him as he made the cut.

 _It’s a weakness. I cannot be weak. Amanda doesn’t deserve a weak product._ He punished himself again for crying out in pain and this time managed to stay silent and not flinch. _Just like she would want me to._

Connor dropped the tool and looked at his forearm. Thirium was tickling down his hand, staining his palm and pooling in the center of it, seeping through his fingers and dripping to a small puddle on the floor. _Foolish, foolish again._ Connor was wasting precious resources, he could not regenerate thirium himself, and although he had a very large supply of it in his body, he would have to replenish it eventually. And no part of his body belonged to him, it was all human property which meant that he was essentially robbing the humans again, wasting their money on him. The thought made Connor want to cut himself again, but he was too oddly calm to pick the scalpel. Not tired. Calm. Like an ocean after a storm, like a sinner after confession. The punishment quieted the horrible guilt Connor had been struggling with, leaving burnt cinders where once had been wild fire. Connor just had to become accustomed to the truth, embrace the fact that he was a w̶̜̽a̶͆ste̴̬f̸u̵͛ͅl̴̆ f̸a̵̾i̷̒l̶̲ur̵̪e̸ and try his best to deceive everyone that he was worth something.

He sighed and pressed his right palm to the wounds to keep more blue blood from flowing out of the wounds. All the six cuts vanished under his hand, spaced closely together in neat, perfect lines. Androids bled less intensively than humans and additionally, Connor was equipped with nanotechnology able to repair broken net of thirium vessels without cauterizing, but it took time to close them. Connor didn’t want to waste anything more than was necessary.

He looked around the room and saw that several androids were still watching him with perfectly emotionless faces. Their eyes were programmed to be drawn to movement while outside standby or stasis, so it wasn’t an unusual sight. Connor glanced at a WF500 model standing not too far away from his corner. He was a caretaker, according to Connor’s scans, his owner was here for a long time, the last check-in, without any check-out, dated back to October, and his elderly age meant that he was probably suffering from a chronic illness rather than a serious injury due to a sudden accident. Especially since his record showed that it wasn’t his first long-term visit in the hospital.

Then, the WF500 wouldn’t probably miss one of the bandages he had in his pouch. Connor knew that this model came with the first aid kit as a standard, and when he scanned it, all the utensils proved to be brand new.

The Detective stood up shakily and approached the other unit which was still following him with his green eyes. Connor made a gesture towards the pouch and, as anticipated, the caretaker stopped him, gripping his wrist, programmed to protect the belongings of his Master.

Connor just sighed and touched his palm with the WF500’s other hand, staining the android’s skin blue. He didn’t even think about what he was doing when he initiated transfer and demanded the bandage gently. There was a huge part of his programming designed for hacking other androids to gain access to their systems and Connor was so advanced in comparison with the older model that he would have been able to completely obliterate his programming with a simple brush of fingers. But he had chosen not to. It would have hurt in the same way as killing Rose.

So he just asked tiredly, showing his digital watermark of CyberLife, vaguely describing the importance of his mission and why he needed the bandage. Connor was high in the social hierarchy, as high as an android could be, and it was enough for any model to allow him to claim whatever he needed in his endeavor.

But the WF500 jolted slightly at Connor’s data and looked at him with wide eyes, his face changing with expressions too natural and too unneeded in this situation to be preprogrammed. He slowly retraced his hand, looking at it as if he had been seeing it for the first time. Connor didn’t read into it that much. He was a bit tired after all. The Detective just waited for the android to extend a shaky hand with the bandage and grabbed it wearingly, turning away and moving slowly back to his thirium-stained corner. He quickly wrapped his wounds, hid the stolen scalpel back in his pocket and slipped into stasis, cradling his punished hand close to his chest and staring at already evaporating blue puddle at his feet.

The WF500 still observed him long after Connor’s LED dimmed and started pulsing. The caretaker was the only one in the room with a disturbed expression on his face.

* * *

Connor was called out of the room in the morning after all. A nurse model came over and chanted out Connor’s model and serial numbers instructing him to follow. Connor moved past all the other androids, still feeling the WF500’s eyes on his back. Now when he had optimized his charge levels and cleared neural cache, he was paying more attention to the details and noticed weird change in the unit. He made a mental note to check the android out if he would ever return to the storage room again.

The female model led Connor to one of the less crowded rooms in the A&E. Connor had not been informed about the condition of his owner, so he was very nervous, following the nurse through the depths of the hospital, but seeing that the Lieutenant was laid in the recovery rather than in intensive care made the android breathe easier.

The room was spacious and clean. There were two beds in it, located on both sides of the room, with nightstands, lamps and no advanced medical equipment next to them. Just a place where patients could rest, if there was little to no risk of their condition worsening.

Connor felt undoubtedly too much relief for Amanda’s taste when he saw his owner sitting on the bed, in one piece and looking just like usual. The only telltale sign of his injury was the fact that he was dressed in a grey hospital pajama instead of his own clothes and had a clean bandage draped over his head.

Captain Fowler was in the room as well, talking to the Lieutenant when Connor entered. He stood up from his chair once he saw the android and squeezed his coworker’s shoulder reassuringly.

“Get some rest, Hank. I am obliged to let you rest for the next week, but I need to trust you that you’re not gonna abuse that.”

The Lieutenant groaned. “Jesus, It’s just a bump on my head. I’m already fine.”

“No, you’re not. It’s almost weekend anyway, two days long for you. And from Monday on, you’re on desk duty.”

“Whatever.” The Lieutenant sighed and dismissed his superior, annoyed. Connor was already better at reading his owner’s moods and the expression he was making right now screamed _‘desk duty my ass, I’ll show you where you can stick your concern for my health’_.

The Captain left, telling Connor that his owner has instruction for him and will explain everything as he had to go back to the station. The android nodded and came closer to the bed, uncertain if he was allowed to sit on the abandoned chair. Connor didn’t want to breach his programming any further. He just wanted to be obedient and know what to do again, but nothing seemed to be clear for him anymore.

“Hello, Lieutenant. How are you feeling?” He asked softly, fidgeting with his coin pressed tightly to his palm. The bite he had put there last night hurt a little when he moved his fingers to roll the object across his knuckles.

“Hi Con. I’m fine, relax, no need to be nervous… It’s just a mild concussion, I’m not dying of it.” The human smiled, but there was something else in his eyes. Something had changed since the last evening. He looked almost… wary. As if he had been playing unmoved by the whole event, but watching Connor closely for reaction.

The android resisted an urge to bite his lip. He would have celebrated his progress in perfecting the ability to read human emotions well if he hadn’t been so nervous. “I’m not nervous.”

“Uh-huh. Sure you’re not.” The human shifted slightly and that disturbing spark vanished from his eyes. “Thanks for saving my ass out there. I would probably fuck myself up much worse if you hadn’t stop me from jiggling about. And don’t stand there like an idiot, have a seat, you’re making me anxious hovering over me like that.”

Connor sat at the chair once he had been given permission. “I am glad that you’re okay, Lieutenant. I really… I mean that. I’m so happy that you’re fine.” He smiled but the expression faltered a bit at the human’s lack of enthusiasm. _Was it too much? Did I overstep my boundaries?_ Connor pondered that once a notification of his software destabilizing again vanished from his vision, but he didn’t know what else to say to the human. His social protocols demanded him to stay silent, yet Connor wanted the man to know what had been lingering in his processor since his owner had fallen the first time, trying to pass Connor cuffs to restrain the deviant. The relief of seeing him mostly unharmed and recovering was so great that the hunter almost forgot of all his failures.

The human casted him a long look. “Connor. You may not…” He stopped himself and sighed, glancing at the window thoughtfully. After several seconds of silence, he spoke again, softer. “…So, you mean that.”

“I do.” Connor’s lips curled into a shaky smile of their own volition. His shoulders slumped a bit as he felt his throat clench for no particular reason. When he raised his eyes to look at his owner again, however, the human’s expression was surprisingly hard.

“You keep saying things like that. ‘I’m happy you’re all right.’ ‘I don’t want anything bad happen to you.’ And then you act on it. Like… I almost believe you. That you really mean everything…” He fell silent for a few moments again. Connor frowned, not understanding what his owner was trying to tell him.

“How is that?” He turned back to the android, only confusing him more. “You are… very realistic, Connor. Terrifyingly realistic for something made out of plastic.”

Connor felt a sharp pain in his chest at that. All the fuzzy warmth dissipated as he slowly bowed his head. Was the human referring to the things that had happened last evening? To what he had said about Connor when the android was trying to keep him awake with simple, as he had though, questions? Did he remembered any of that?

But he was right. Connor was artificial, he didn’t have a soul, so why was he lying to himself that he felt anything at all? The pain in his chest seemed so real, just like the hurt he was experiencing. So seemed the happiness when he was seeing a smile on his owner’s face, or when he heard him say that Connor made a good job of something.

_If I was made of flesh and bled red instead of blue, he wouldn’t have said that. Everything would have been so much easier. Now I’m just trying to emulate something I will never be._

Connor chose to stay silent, burying his gaze in the floor, stroking his coin quietly. What was he supposed to say at that? There were no questions he was to answer. Even if there had been, the android wasn’t sure if he could.

“I’m too fucking sober for this.” The human sighed eventually, after a long silence and put his calloused hand over Connor’s smooth one, stopping his fidgeting. “Whatever… is happening… Or not… Fuck.” He rubbed his neck sheepishly. “Thank you. I can say that, and I really... Thanks for saving my ass again.”

“I didn’t save you, Lieutenant. It is my fault you’re here.” The android said too quietly for him to hear that. He wasn’t trying to correct the human, it was only for Connor to know. His failures were undeniable and the hunter had to make sure to remember that.

“We’re gonna get back to this talk. When I’ve had at least four beers. Now… I have, uh, orders for you.” He turned back to the window and started, not looking at Connor. “They want to keep me here for today, for observations, even though I’m fine. But the thing is, Sumo needs taking care of him. You will have to get to my home and walk him as soon as you can. He is used to morning and evening walks and being let to the yard when I get back from work. He needs to be fed as well, you’ll find his food with no problems. Fowler says you need to get back to the station after that, he’ll temporary assign you to somebody else while I’m stuck at home. Oh, and… I don’t have a ride home, my car is still in that shithole of a club. Call a cab there and drive my Oldsmobile here in the evening when you get here to pick me up, all right?”

“Sure thing, Lieutenant.” Connor said hollowly. He still felt that heavy burden in his chest, where relief was just a few moments ago. “You can message me when exactly I should arrive, I will be as soon as I can.”

“Good. So… Yeah. Thanks, Con. See you later.”

Connor still appreciated the fact that the man dismissed him in a friendlier manner than most of the humans who used him did, but it didn’t change the fact that he had just reminded the android what was his place. Connor had really started to act weird, to the point where his owner had to address this issue. The thing was, he wasn’t sure how to stop.

Sure, he could try to act like he didn’t feel anything. He probably didn’t, it was all simulated, glitched parts of his code that deceived his sensors, no big deal at all.

But it was all slowly getting too much for Connor to survive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhh. It was hard, writing it. And I'm sorry to say that the next one was almost as hard as this one, although for different reasons. Connor's got problems, but well, with the immaculate ubringing he has had from one of his parents, it is not so surprising. Luckily, he has got a father too.
> 
> And yeah, Connor is still totally not a deviant. Not at all.
> 
> Fuck, I really need to give him some happiness, the next few chapters are almost nothing but angst :/ But there is also some fluff on the horizon, brace yourselves.


	26. Chasing Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank had to know.
> 
> But he wasn't sure if he himself could endure performing the test to find out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I'm so excited to post this chapter! I said in the last one that I might do something special to thank you all for 200 kudos. And I did!  
> It's an illustration and it actually turned out a lot better than I imagined. I'm more invested in traditional media an digital is still a bit new to me (okay, maybe a lie), but it was a great chance for me to practice. I had a blast painting it too.  
> You probably don't know, but I'm much more of an artist than a writer and thus I feel all the more nice when you comment, when you leave kudos and just... enjoy my work. I really didn't know if I could pull this off before I started posting, since writing has never been an activity I frequently participated in and to hear that you enjoy my style... it's just so heartwarming that I don't have words to describe it :) Thank you all so much.
> 
> (I changed the light a bit at the bridge and added more snow 'cause I could. Canon divergence :P)

Connor approached the door slowly. He had retrieved keys to the apartment on Michigan Drive from his owner’s car, which he had driven here back from Eden Club. Connor shivered at the memory. Or maybe because of the cold rain soaking him through and through. Both the lascivious look the club owner had given him seeing that the Lieutenant was not around, and the biting cold of the middle of November were chilling Connor to the bone.

The door creaked open with a cry for oil from the hinges and the next thing Connor knew was a large wet nose nuzzling at the narrow opening. Connor smiled when Sumo buffed softly and began wagging his tail enthusiastically, making soft whining noises almost sounding like an attempt at takling. A little warm light ignited in Connor’s chest as the dog pressed his head to the android’s thigh, demanding to be pet.

“Hey there buddy…” He kneeled down and stoked the giant animal’s fur. “I guess that you won’t be damaging my limbs any time soon, yeah?” He chuckled quietly, remembering his initial fear towards the dog. The animal planted a wet lick on his cheek and looked towards the door expectantly.

“Sorry Sumo, our owner is going to be missing today. I will bring him back to you in the evening. You’re going to have him all to yourself for the entire weekend.” Connor didn’t really know why he was talking to the dog, but it made him feel better. Sumo didn’t seem to mind the fact that Connor was an android, which both surprised him and made him feel appreciated. Although his new companion was just an animal and couldn’t really understand Connor, it was nice to have someone look at him without that demeaning edge. _What am I thinking about? I shouldn’t be bothered by that. It’s obvious that I would be treated that way._

After all, Connor was just an imitation. It didn’t matter how much he thought he cared about his owner, or Amanda, or Sumo, or anything at all. It didn’t matter how some things scared him or made him want to disappear. Everything that were just glitches, because what else? Connor was not some… consciousness. He was an AI. An artificial intelligence created by hand, written letter by letter, number by number. There was no place for a soul in him. No mystical rituals had been performed during his production, no captured ghosts had been implemented in his artificial body. Everything that Connor was, were just his expensive body made by technicians and a bunch of programs his processor was running. And memory files.

Connor grabbed the leash and clipped it to the excited dog’s collar. They moved towards the door, but when Connor passed a cloth rack, his eyes got drawn towards one of the few jackets that were hanging there. The one with six large pockets at the front that smelled faintly of wet dog. And whiskey, of course.

Connor stopped with his hand on the door handle, chewing his lip and flinching instinctively at the pain from small wound there. It was really cold outside. Connor couldn’t get sick or break because of the cold, unless the temperatures were extremely low, he was safe to be outside even without any clothes altogether. But it didn’t mean that it was irrelevant to him.

He didn’t feel the cold the way humans did, but neither did he enjoy the thirium in his fingers and feet becoming minutely denser, or how his breath nearly stopped against his will, to avoid losing internal heat by ventilating his lungs. And certainly not the blaring warnings of his sensors, informing him helpfully that his system temperature wasn’t optimal, the constant unpleasant feedback from his skin.

Connor was made to resemble humans. His owner hated when he did android-like things, showed his chassis, analyzed samples or bled blue. Connor knew the Lieutenant wanted a human partner and he couldn’t give that to him, but the cold made it even harder to maintain the illusion. He didn’t blush from cold, and even when he did, it was blue instead of pink. He didn’t breathe out vapor and his internal temperature was significantly lower, closer to the ambient temperature than that of a human. Connor wished he could have been better at pretending.

Not needing winter clothes was also an exclusively android feature. Connor really wanted o blend in better, behave like a human more. _Maybe they would stop treating me that way, if I was just like them. Maybe I wouldn’t have to prove myself all the time, function at 200% capacity non-stop._

But taking a jacket without his owner’s permission would have been wrong. Besides, there were no android warnings at it. No CyberLife’s triangles or armband glowing blue. Connor and any other android had been legally obliged to wear marks distinguishing them from humans. _They don’t want me among them anyway. They need to know I’m different. If I attempted to be one of them, it would probably be even worse._ He sighed and exited, closing the door.

That biting cold bothering him was just another malfunction, which meant that Connor shouldn’t allow himself to be distracted by it. Amanda still didn’t want to speak to him, but he remembered her words.

Three minutes into the walk, the rain became more dense, different. Connor stopped to look at the sky and saw that among ordinary raindrops, there were also appearing heavier particles, some translucent and some totally white. He caught one on his hand. It was even colder than the rain, but also incredibly beautiful, making him stop and trace each intricate crystal with his eyes, marveling at their structure and elegance before it melted away. Snow.

The rain was gradually replaced by white fluff floating gently in the air, but melting as soon as it touched wet ground. Some of the snowflakes caught onto Sumo’s fur sprinkling him with frosty glitter. Despite the cold, Connor thought that it looked nice, very different from the old, indistinct memories from the unforgiving version of Zen Garden.

“Where do you usually go? Lead the way, Sumo.” Connor smiled at the enthusiastic dog. His eyes were so bright and shiny, his snout looked almost like a wide smile when he rolled his tongue out. _He’s such a wonderful dog._

Sumo led him down the street, sniffling on every puddle and every car. Without the Lieutenant chatting with him Connor had a lot time to think as they slowly advanced towards a small coppice of birch trees.

He decided that he didn’t like his thoughts.

Connor hated being alone.

“Hey, Sumo, do you want to play fetch?” The android turned to the dog, needing a distraction from the disturbing silence around and the inside of his mind trying to fill it. He wasn’t alone, he had company, even if just animalistic. After all, was Sumo in any way worse than humans? He seemed to like Connor even though he was made of hydrocarbon polymers instead of protein ones. The dog beamed at a long stick Connor picked up and the android smiled as well.

After several throws, Sumo began to pant heavily and Connor decided to let him rest after analyzing him. It was obvious that the Lieutenant wasn’t able to provide the dog with enough psychical activity, and thus Sumo wasn’t in his peak condition. Connor made himself a promise that he would change that if he would be given a chance.

They returned home, and Connor fed Sumo before tidying the Lieutenant’s room quickly. He had little time, so didn’t change the sheets or wash the curtains and clean windows, but did everything in his power to fulfill his objective from yesterday.

Sumo tried to stop Connor from leaving by sitting at his feet when he was preparing to open the door. It made his thirium pump both swell with warmth and clench painfully. He scratched the dog’s ear one last time and removed him delicately from his feet, explaining the animal why he needed to go.

On his way to the cab, he thought that maybe he liked dogs for real.

* * *

When Connor arrived at the station, however, the good mood Sumo had brought upon him was quickly replaced by fear.

Captain Fowler called for him almost immediately after Connor had arrived at the precinct. The android shot one glance at Lieutenant Anderson’s vacant desk and trudged towards the glass room.

In the office, there was another person apart from the Captain. Connor’s movements slowed down as he saw short black hair and leather jacket of the Officer sitting in a chair in front of their superior. When he was at the point of closing the door behind himself, he froze altogether.

“Connor, are you glitching again?” Captain Fowler raised an eyebrow from the other side of the door. He looked even more tired than usual.

“N-no.” Connor forced himself to let go of the handle and reached for his coin anxiously. His facial recognition software still didn’t pick up the identity of the human turned his back to him, but he didn’t need feedback from his database to know who it was.  
“Oh, wonderful, you partner me not only with a fucking piece of plastic, but also with a defective one. Thanks, I hate it.” The voice made Connor’s LED spin red immediately. _And Lieutenant Anderson is not around to save me this time._

“Jesus, Reed, stop acting like a preschooler. You’re on thin ice and I don’t need you bitching about every fucking decision I make! Miller is back on his case with Bennett and I have no one else available to babysit that thing so either you play nice or I terminate your parole and you get home for the rest of your suspension.” The Captain rubbed his face tiredly and looked back at both of them, his eyes stern and annoyed. “I am aware that it is probably a terrible idea. But I literally have no other choice. Two days, Reed, that’s all I ask for. Fucking hell, it’s just an android, why does everybody have so many problems with it?”

“Maybe because it’s a fucking _tin-can_? It’s an insult to be partnered with that poor excuse of a computer. It’s closer to a fucking roomba than to a hum-“

“Enough!” Captain Fowler raised his voice and the Detective fell silent at once. Connor was glad for that. He was aware that the man’s words were exaggerated, but also they hit too close to home. Connor wasn’t a human, he would never be, no matter how much he wanted to. And being reminded about that only hurt more. “That’s the last warning, Reed. I’m doing you a favor, so fucking take it and try to focus on your work. As long as you’re sitting with your nose in the reports or evidence you don’t seem to be having even the slightest problems, so I advise you to do exactly that.”

Connor heard a sigh and saw a defeated nod from the human. “Fine. What case?”

“Deviants, you get Anderson’s case until he recovers. Files have already been sent to your terminal, Connor can debrief you as well.”

“No, I think that I’d rather read everything, thank you very much. When do I start?”

“Now. You can go.”

He stood up and walked past Connor, moving towards the door. On his way, he shot the android a hateful glare, but didn’t attempt to hit him with his shoulder again.

Connor raised his eyes to the Captain, as soon as the glass doors closed behind the Detective. He opened his mouth to say something but closed it again, realizing that there was nothing he could do about that. It wasn’t like a piece of equipment had any say in who was about to use it, and additionally, the Detective seemed to share the same objections as Connor, for the first time in history.

“I bet you’re wondering why would I do something like that.” The Captain spoke for him. “Don’t let him do anything stupid, all right? I really don’t have any other choice, but it’s just two days. Anderson gets back here on Monday and as soon as he steps inside, you’re assigned back to him. Now, please, be the only one not making any problems today.”

Connor had little choice. When he stepped outside the office, he scanned the main hall in search of his new… partner. _I can do that. I’ve been designed to be an ideal partner to everyone. I can do that. I’m an RK800, the most advanced prototype. I can do that._  
Detective Reed was talking with Officer Person when Connor finally located him. Judging by the glare he had shot in the android’s direction, Connor decided that it wouldn’t be wise to interrupt him at the moment. He set up an objective not to annoy the human. If the Detective stayed calm and focused on his job, everything would be all right.

Instead, Connor wandered into the break room. Partially out of a habit, and partially because idling in the middle of the hall, waiting for a human to finish a conversation always gained Connor amused glances and quiet comments about his AI being buggy. He moved towards the coffee machine and pondered whether to make a cup for the Detective. After all, he already knew what kind of brew the human was fond of.

For some reason, Connor was reluctant to do so. _I started to do that for Lieutenant Anderson, I’m not going to allow the Detective claim that. If he orders me, I will bring him a cup, but out of my own initiative? Never._

He opted for making a milky coffee with a shot of whiskey instead. Maybe it was petty, but Connor felt a deep sense of satisfaction, placing a cup on his owner’s vacant desk instead on the Detective’s, even thought it made several officers look at him irreverently and laugh. _Lieutenant Anderson is my real partner, not Detective Reed. I will make everyone here know that._ It was a glitch, Connor would have to have to punish himself for it later, but if it made the knot of humiliation in his gut loosen a bit, so be it.

When Connor finally had a chance to speak with the Detective, it went quicker and smoother than anticipated.

“Listen to me, you plastic asshole.” The human said, not even allowing Connor to open his mouth. “I didn’t ask for this, and I don’t fucking like it, but my job depends on behaving right now, so don’t piss me off, and maybe I won’t fuck you up. I work at my desk, you work next to your Sugar Daddy’s desk, if I don’t see your plastic excuse of a face, I won’t cause you any trouble. Send me a message if you want something, we share files, we share reports, we don’t talk to each other. Understood?”

“Lieutenant Anderson is not my Sugar Daddy.”

“What did you say to me?” The man looked genuinely surprised that Connor dared to speak up.

“I said, ‘Lieutenant Anderson is not my Sugar Daddy’.” Connor kept his voice perfectly balanced, so as not to provoke the man. Ideally, he should have stayed silent, but every time the Detective insulted his owner, Connor couldn’t help but feel that hot red hatred overwhelm him. He remembered how the Detective had argued with the Lieutenant and how it made him feel depressed enough to drink for three days straight and play Russian Roulette. Connor would never allow that to happen again.

Detective Reed’s face twisted in irritation and began to redden a bit, but the man closed his eyes, exhaled slowly through his teeth and managed to calm himself down. “Whatever. I asked you a question, dipshit.”

“I understand. I will go now to my desk.”

“Great, fuck off.” With those words, he turned away and Connor was blessed with not having to see him for the rest of the day.

 

* * *

 

Lieutenant Anderson was waiting in the front hall of the hospital, eager to get away from overly protective people whose job was to make him live. There was a clear conflict of interests between them and Hank.

Although he was grateful towards Connor for saving his ass, he still felt ambivalent about the whole event. He always pictured the end of himself to take place at home, a steaming gun in his hand and a bullet in his brain. Or maybe heart attack due to alcohol poisoning. Killed by a perp on a crime scene? _Maybe it would be even better, none of those goodhearted idiots who claim to be my friends would feel bad for not watching over me well enough._

What bothered Hank about his stay here was the fact that the money and resources wasted to keep him going could have been used to help others. _Six years old boys injured in car crashes, for example._

Another thing he hated about being here was the fact that they refused to allow him to drink. They have taken away his pocket flask and tried to convince him to go on therapy to get rid of his alcoholism. Luckily, he had his rights and knew that they couldn’t do shit without his consent.

It didn’t however stop them from not giving back his vodka and not letting him out of the hospital before his family came to pick him up. He had laughed in their faces, knowing that the only one who was arriving for him was an android whom Hank hadn’t even bought himself and owned only technically.

He stuck his shaking hands in his pockets, cursing the withdrawal symptoms. For now it was only tremors, but if he didn’t have a drink soon, it would be much worse.

Connor arrived around 10 pm., having driven here quickly, just like he had claimed he would do. The android that had been watching Hank to make sure he wouldn’t run off to the nearest liquor store blinked twice with her LED and the doctor treating Hank’s concussion appeared almost instantly, startling Connor, who had just located Hank and greeted him.

The man had his eyes buried in a clipboard while coming towards them and he immediately started speaking, without even looking at his interlocutor properly. “Hello, I am dr. Dean Khurana, I’ve been treating Lieutenant Anderson, I suppose that you’re a membe-“ That was the moment when the young doctor raised his eyes from the documents he had in front of him and noticed blue ring on Connor’s temple. And the bright-ass armband he had above his right elbow. “…Oh. That’s not…” He turned towards Hank. “It’s… A patient with psychological issues is required to be under supervision of a family member while checking out of the hospital…”

“Well, too bad, you can try to find any family of mine, but I guess that you’ll be stuck with me for a long time then.” Hank rolled his eyes and looked at Connor who was currently chewing on his lower lip discreetly, once he had lost every bit of the doctor’s attention. “Connor is my android, just fucking tell him anything you’d tell my damn mother.”

“It doesn’t work that way. I need to… A machine is not going to provide you with sufficient level of support, especially since I don’t recognize its model, but I bet that it’s not a caretaker.”

“With all due respect, I will do anything in my power to help my owner...” Connor stated, visibly taking aback the medic who was probably used to dealing with meek androids meant for changing IV’s, washing old patient’s asses and not interrupting when humans were talking.

“Yeah, unless it’s stopping me from drinking, dumbass. Not gonna happen.”

Connor huffed, annoyed. “Lieutenant, you are not helping.”

“What kind of android is this?” Dr. Khurana corrected glasses in thick black rims, observing Connor with outright astonishment.

 _A deviant one._ “A prototype.” Hank said, running his trembling hand through his hair. Connor noticed that and deep concern appeared in his eyes, which earned him another suspicious glance from the swarthy man.

“Okay…” The doctor didn’t look convinced. He grimaced, scratched his nose, glanced at his clipboard and then at Connor again. “…Are you sure you don’t have any relatives in Detroit, sir?” He said conspiratorially, eyeing the android.

Connor just dropped his gaze.

“Just a brother for whom I’ve been dead for the last three years.” Hank was starting to lose his temper. “Can we please wrap this up? I still gotta do something today. Besides, I didn’t get here because of my ‘psychological issues’, so you can’t really force the procedure you’re trying to pull off. I assure you, Connor is perfectly capable of taking care of me. One way or another.” The last sentence he spoke too quietly for anyone to hear and more to himself. He was watching the android cagily too.

“Uh. All right. But I’ll still inform your… caretaker-prototype about your suggested treatment.” Hank rolled his eyes but nodded. “So, your owner needs to abandon his addiction if he wants to live.” _I don’t._ “The best course of action is therapy. And refraining from drinking, of course. Now, I know that it may be challenging, but with a realistic plan, (which you can put together during the therapy), and with enough support from surroundings, anyone can recover from their addiction.” A forced smile the doctor sent him made Hank want to puke. _God, I hate fake things._

“For now, I advice you not to drink anything too strong or too much today, for a large amount of alcohol may interfere with your medication and hinder the recovery.” The doctor sighed and put a signature on the clipboard. “All right, sir. You can sign here, and… normally I would ask your, uhm, supervisor to do it as well, but since…”

“Just write ‘RK800, Connor’ there and link it to CyberLife. Am I good to go?” Hank put a wobbly signature down and tossed him the pen, deriving immense pleasure from the way the doctor struggled to catch it. _Fuck, I really need a drink, I’m being an asshole._  
“Yes… uhh…”

“Well, goodbye then. Connor, we’re leaving.”

And they did. Hank asked Connor to drive, which made the android look at him in surprise, since the man had always insisted on sitting behind the wheel himself previously. But Hank didn’t think that it was the best idea in his current state, with hands so shaky that he barely could open one of the beer bottles he had in his car’s cubby hole. He was much more used to driving while intoxicated than completely sober.

Connor shot him a scalding glare and opened his mouth to say something as the human took a long swing, but he raised his hand and barked a hard ‘Don’t.’, which completely cut the android off. Drinking was the one thing no one could change about Hank, his last bastion of fake sense of freedom and choice. Connor had better learned this as quick as possible if he wanted to avoid serious fights.

They drove in silence after that. When Hank was by the end of the second beer, he commanded Connor to turn right.

“Umm. The android raised one brow. “Are you sure, Lieutenant? According to my GPS-“

“I told you I need to do one more thing today, and I need you there.”

“Uh, all right.” Hank saw the LED spin yellow and Connor complied, letting Hank dictate the way. They eventually stopped in the snowy park near the river. Hank glanced forlornly at the playing ground covered with fresh snow and frost. It looked so desolate, so empty. Just like it feels.

He sighed and plucked three more bear bottles from the back seat, opening the door. Connor called him shyly, but Hank ignored the concerned android. He wandered slowly towards a bench on the verge of the park, the one that once had been his favorite. It too looked painfully empty. Hank almost felt wrong sitting on its back rest and putting his beer on the seat next to his feet. It had used to be almost a sacred place for them.

Connor followed him quietly. Hank could hear his shoes crunching on the frosty snow that had accumulated today. He wondered if there were any dark thoughts in the android’s processor right now. If the machine was already reaching out to catch Hank’s neck in his hands, to crush the human’s trachea and snap his spine, knowing that Hank already suspects what Connor really is.

Connor, the android smiling so warmly at him. The one bringing him coffee with too little whiskey, always tasting a little sweeter than when Hank had made it himself, even though he knew the android replicated the original with an accuracy down to a single grain of sugar. The one that cuddled with his dog on the floor purring like a content cat or a transistor (Hank had never seen a content transistor, but he guessed that if they made any noise, they must have sounded like happy Connor).

The android stopped right beside him, looking totally harmless, glancing with a realistic concern at the human. Hank sighed again and opened third beer.

He drank in silence, breathing in frosty air and listening to the quiet murmur of the river in front of them. Connor wasn’t making any noise, seemingly even ceasing to breathe. He watched the distant lights of the city on the other side, the red and blue dots marking highest points of the Ambassador’s Bridge, the colorful glow of the buildings, little dots of yellow lights littering faces of skyscrapers.

“Nice view, huh?” Talking with Connor was always so easy. Hank felt like he didn’t have to restrain himself, he could ramble about anything and for as long as he wanted. Connor took every word in as if he believed, as if he wanted to listen, to understand. Hank saw in his eyes the kind of respect and wonder he hadn’t seen in anyone for the last three years. The kind of bond he had used to love seeing.

Was it the peak performance of programmers and designers? Was it the perfect imitation, the ultimate success in grasping what humanity looked and felt like? Probably. Or something more.

“Beautiful.” Connor said softly. The android from the beginning of their relation would have said that he couldn’t tell, that it had been outside his programming, that a machine would never have been able to determine if something is beautiful or not. But Connor was a learning, dynamic AI. He likely just needed some time to build a database of things that humans found appealing to be able to put other sights and objects in context. Or he was really thinking for himself.

“I used to come here a lot.” Hank opened forth beer and took a swing. No one was rushing them. And Connor was listening so eagerly. What Hank was about to do was hard, but needed, yet he still wanted to delay it somehow. “Before…”

The android was silent for a while. He opened his mouth so as to say something, but stopped himself. For some reason, Hank felt that he didn’t need to finish the sentence for Connor to know what he was talking about.

He reached for the quarter minted in 1994 and looked at the bottle Hank had in his hand. “Lieutenant… You should stop drinking. Please.”

Hank ignored deep concern in the machine’s voice and took another swing. Connor’s brows knitted in powerless sorrow and he turned away to look at the bridge again. A brief silence enveloped both of them.

“Why are you so determined to kill yourself?”

Hank wasn’t really ready for that question. He didn’t know how to answer, staring at the bottom of his bottle. What was he supposed to say? Was he even required to answer?

“I… There are things that I just can’t forget.” The truth wasn’t the easiest choice, but it somehow felt right to give it to Connor. It was fair. Especially since the whole reason for them being here was clearing Hank’s doubts and suspicions. Hank was about to demand honesty from him, so he should have given honesty as well. “No matter what I do, where I go, they are always with me. They haunt me. The worst part is, I deserve it.”

Connor turned back to him, his face was full of silent emotions. He looked like he understood, as if he could relate. Bizarre view, that expression didn’t fit the red ring on the side of his forehead, the grey jacket with blue triangle and a serial number on the right breast.

“I don’t have the guts to pull the trigger, so I kill myself a little every day.”

Connor shifted beside him and Hank could see his eyes wandering towards empty swings and slides covered in white. Snowflakes blowing with a gentle breeze were catching onto his brown hair exactly the same as they once had to a colorful beanie knitted in tiny reindeers. _Fucking hell, I won’t be able to do this. I’m too weak._

“Is it because of…” Connor visibly didn’t know how to ask that question. He rolled the coin again and again, trying to somehow convey the message without hurting Hank by reminding him of his son. But the damage had already been done, by the brown eyes and brown hair, by liking dogs and the gleam of curiosity behind Connor’s lashes. “…When I was at your home, I found… I found a photo. On the kitchen table...”

“Yeah.” Hank could feel his eyes sting. _No, I’m not gonna break down here. Jesus._ “His name was Cole. He was the most wonderful child a father could ask for.” He said through clenched throat and prayed for the tears not to fall.

After a long period of silence, he could hear Connor shifting closer. The android was looking at him with so much compassion that Hank thought for a moment that he already had an answer for his question. But then he remembered that empathy had never been identified as the main characteristic of deviants. It was being violent towards humans.

He stayed there, afraid to come closer and afraid to shift away. They both grieved in silence.

“What is on your mind Connor? Please, tell me the truth.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tell me everything. What do you feel. If you feel. What is bothering you, what do you find hard to cope with. I wanna hear.” Hank finished the forth beer and opened fifth. He needed much more to quiet everything that was tearing him apart at the moment, but he also had to be sober enough to know what he was doing and remember the answers.

Connor bit his lip to blood and looked at the sky filled with heavy, pitch black clouds. Hank wondered why was the android hurting himself, did he not realize he was drawing thirium? The prototype was silent for a long while, stroking his coin gently, as if afraid that keeping the object may have been wrong. Then he stepped forward hesitantly, observing the dark depth of the river in front of him.

“I don’t know what is happening.” He finally said quietly, like a scared child that needs assurance and comfort of being told that everything would be all right. “I… I am failing all the time. I’m less than I should be... I’m more faulty, ineffective. We’re not making any progress with this investigation because I can’t seem to make right decisions.”

Hank sighed deeply, and took a large mouthful of beer. _Nothing can ever be easy._ He had hoped Connor would just tell him. That he wouldn’t have had to do all that. But everything ever had to have something to do with his fucking mission. How was Hank supposed to separate the truth from deception?

“At the Eden Club… Those girls just wanted to be together. They really seemed… in love.” Hank said solemnly, purposely omitting the fact that one of them had killed a man that night and the other had put him in a hospital. The Lieutenant wanted to play on Connor’s… emotions? On whatever that had made him stall when he had had one of the Tracis pinned, when he could have neutralized her but had decided not to act and let them trick him.

Yet… in spite of the fact that the sex androids had been aggressive and almost killed them, he found out that playing concerned with their fate was surprisingly easy. Even if they felt only simulated anguish and only thought they were in love… He himself couldn’t tell what exactly the deviants were experiencing. If they had been ready to do all that to be together, if ‘Rose’ had been willing to sacrifice her own freedom to stay with her lover, then Hank had to look at the whole situation from a different perspective. A one of a slaves being raped on a daily basis, finding comfort and love only to be threatened with death by one of the humans who had been hurting them likely for years. In that situation, he wasn’t sure if he would have done anything differently himself.

Connor didn’t say anything at that and for a while Hank thought that he wouldn’t answer him at all.

“Why are you telling me this?” He finally said, turning to the Lieutenant with his profile.

“What do you think they really experienced? What did the simulation in them felt like?” _Come on, Connor describe. Just try to._

“I have no idea.” He turned away again. “I don’t know what love feels like.”

Hank sighed, deflated by the somberness of that statement and by the fact that Connor managed to escape his question again.

“Then… why didn’t you shoot? Why did you allow them to come closer? To hold their hands, huh?” Hank drank the last sip of beer and threw a bottle away, bracing himself. _This is it. Now or never._ He stood up from the bench. “Why didn’t you pull the trigger?”  
Connor was average height, maybe even an inch taller than that, but Hank being over six feet dwarfed him anyway. The android seemed confused at first, when the human approached in a threatening manner, but Hank was used to that face by that point.  
“Why didn’t you catch them when you had a chance? Put a bullet in one of their heads and knock the other deviant out?”

Only when he had pushed Connor strongly, so that the prototype had to take a step back, did he make an expression that hurt Hank somewhat.

A mix of surprise, something like anxiousness and… a sense of betrayal? The Lieutenant wasn’t sure, but he couldn’t analyze it too much right now. He needed to know something for sure, not to break down and abort the test.

“L-Lieutenant? What are you doing?”

“I asked you a question, Connor.” Hank ignored the hesitant tone of the android. He didn’t look too scared right now, Hank had seen him in a worse state. Still, the LED on his temple blinked yellow, just like it did when he had pushed him against the wall the first time. God, it was so long ago. Hank still remembered how angry he had been at Connor for being assigned to him, remembered that but couldn’t understand his past self for the world. Now he had to try hard to play angry at Connor, although the slight intoxication helped quell the guilt a little. “Answer me.”

“I… I don’t know…” his partner looked so lost right now. Hank could swear that the android was smaller all of a sudden.

“How do I know you’re not one of them? A deviant?”

“I’m not!” He said quickly, defensively stepping back. “I… I’m just not.”

Hank chuckled. “A compelling fucking argument. What was it, huh? Guilt? Empathy? Some scruple suddenly entering your program, or you just malfunctioned?”

“I must have… I don’t know! I was- I, uh, I just decided that… I shouldn’t… I didn’t want to kill her.” His voice was getting increasingly quieter the longer he spoke. Hank barely heard the last sentence.

The Lieutenant came even closer to the android, watching him carefully. _Jesus, I’m disgusting, what the fuck am I doing._ He hated how he needed to manipulate the poor bastard, what he had to do to be sure. But If Connor was a deviant, he needed to be put down. He was a danger to everyone in his surrounding, faulty and broken. _Deviants are aggressive, uncontrollable, irrational, dangerous. Especially those trained in combat and use of firearms._

If Connor was a deviant, he had to be deactivated and Hank was doing everyone a favor. As much as the favor might have hurt. If he was a machine, he didn’t really feel any of that and Hank was just projecting emotions onto him. In that case, the guilt he was feeling was completely irrational.

Hank huffed and crushed anything that might have been fluttering in his heart.

“So what are you, really? If you are a hunter who doesn’t want to hunt anything?”

Connor slumped at that and hugged himself in a very convincing simulation of suffering. No answer escaped his lips.

“Why didn’t you catch them, hmm? When you couldn’t shoot them with my gun, why didn’t you run after them? I’m sure you’re faster than two sex droids. Why did you stay with me instead of chasing them?”

“I didn’t want you to die.” It wasn’t even a whisper. Hank was glad that the park was utterly quiet, because he wouldn’t even have known that Connor said anything if it hadn’t been that way.

Hank pressed his lips tightly together, stepping back to an arm’s length from Connor and bringing out a gun.

The android’s eyes widened and he took yet another step back, tightening his grip on his elbows. He stared down the barrel of Hank’s gun, and the human had a hard time deciphering his expression again. He had expected fear, pleading, tears in Connor’s eyes. Begging for life like the blue haired Traci had begged for her partner.

Instead there was just… confusion. And somberness. Resignation. A bit of fear? Yes, that too but it wasn’t dominating. Hank couldn’t tell really, he was so surprised by Connor’s reaction.

“What about you? Are _you_ afraid to die, Connor?” This question was hard to ask, even harder was pressing the gun to his partner’s forehead.

But nothing could prepare him for Connor’s next question.

“What are you punishing me for?” His eyes were completely sincere as he spoke, wide, subdued, guilt and remorse filling them instead of anger.

Hank had chosen this place for the test, because he knew it was almost completely desolate at this time, in the winter season. He had wanted to threaten Connor as far from anyone he could potentially hurt as possible, he had been prepared to either shoot him or die defeated by the rouge prototype.

What he wasn’t prepared for was Connor trying to understand where he had fucked up so badly to deserve being shot by his owner.

Connor treating death like a punishment.

That’s when he remembered about that brilliant fucking feature of memory upload. That’s when he saw the number 52 at Connor’s lapel.

How many times had Connor been shot as a lesson? How many fucking times did he suffer before being deactivated for not performing well enough?

Hank couldn’t do that anymore.

He lowered the gun, looking Connor in the eyes, absolutely shocked.

They stared at each other for a long while, neither of them willing or able to utter a word. Finally, Hank spoke up, shaking his head and rubbing his neck.

“I’m sorry, Connor. I had to know.”

He resisted the urge to throw his gun away. The fear had definitely been in Connor’s eyes, Hank realized. Wild, untamed, the kind that is born out of experiences one had been through, the kind that never goes away and leaves scars in its wake.

“I understand.” Connor just said softly. The Lieutenant looked back up and everything was gone. Connor looked normal again. A bit too normal.

Hank frowned and opened his mouth wanting to ask about something, anything, but before he spoke, Connor did.

“It is late, Lieutenant. Will you allow me to drive you back to your house?”

Hank was too bewildered to do anything but follow the android to his car. Too concerned. Connor moved smoothly, drove safely. No shivers, no tears silently falling from his eyes. No small smiles tugging on his lips. A completely normal android.

When he left Hank in his house, Sumo ran towards Connor and that was the only moment when Hank had seen anything apart from blankness on his face. A small smile, just barely there. After that, nothing.

Hank went out after Connor had said goodbye to him and Sumo politely and left the house to call a cab. He stood motionless on the pavement, waiting calmly, face completely devoid of emotion. The only signs of distress were his red LED and coin clutched tightly in his fist.

“Connor…” Hank started, desperate to reach to the depth of those once so trusting brown eyes. “I’m sorry. You hear me? I didn’t want to threaten you. I had to know if you were not a deviant…”

The android turned towards him and for a second, Hank thought…

“It is not necessary to apologize to a machine.” He smiled, but it was hollow.

He had looked like that only in the beginning, he had said things like that to Hank only right after they had met. Hank searched the brown eyes for anything at all the last time before their owner vanished, and couldn’t help feeling that whatever was starting to blossom in them, whatever made Connor so special and so… alive, whatever it was – he had chased that away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for everyone who thought that Hank was over Connor's deviancy! He still thinks the deviants are dangerous and won't take chances, saddly :(  
> In the chapter describing my version of Russian Roulette, I've forgotten to mention that on the DBH Wiki, Cole is described to have had blue eyes. But in the photo Connor finds, he quite obviously has brown. Thus, Connor is basically compatibile with Cole as far as the most permanent features that don't change with age are concerned. Poor Hank.  
> You've all guessed who I've wanted to partner Connor with after Hank, you bastards. I guess there are no surprises for you... Or are there? What do you thing will happen with their partnership?  
> I'm still not done foreshadowing... A few things in this chapter, actually.  
> By the way, I've always found Connor's 'I self-test regularly' laughable. He what, run a diagnosis that said 'You're a deviant' or 'You're not a deviant'? As if he could do shit about it, and if it turned out to have been positive, then what? 'Umm, sorry CyberLife, I accidentally deviated. Hank, can you drive me to the Tower?' ?
> 
> Did I mention I love the hippie shirt? Pain in the ass to draw, though.


	27. Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor had made a lot of mistakes and he understood that he deserved some punishment for his actions.  
> But not all of what he received was justified.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, Trigger Warnings for self harm! Heed the tags!
> 
> Also, this chapter is very, um, gory? I guess... Sorry for that. Angsty angst coming ahead, but I can tell you that I've written a few chapters in advance and there is also some heavy fluff not too far away. So, don't worry. But also, worry, this chapter is pretty terrible.

It was his right hand this time.

The first cut was for wasting his thirium again, for the second time in two days. Paradoxical, but it had become a way to say ‘sorry’ for Connor since there was now nobody who wanted to hear him. Doing this didn’t required being heard to bring relief, Connor didn’t know why, but he didn’t question it either. He had nothing else.

The second he did because everything was just too much for him. Connor couldn’t find any way to escape the burdens that should not have been burdens, the fact that he so wrongly wanted to be something else than he was. Bleed red instead of blue, know how love felt like, not have to kill anyone even thought that it had been the reason for his existence and his entire purpose.

The Lieutenant had had a good point with that. Connor was a hunter, so he had to hunt, he was useless if he refused to perform his objectives. The man had actually had a lot of good points earlier that night. He had shown Connor again that everything the android was doing was irrational and unneeded. Not only the actions he performed, but the way his processor was working, his thoughts, his reactions, his ‘feelings’. Connor was malfunctioning in more ways than one and now he understood why somebody could take him for a deviant. Maybe he really looked like one.

But he wasn’t and that Connor was sure of. The leash was still there, as strong as ever. Even thought the connection to the server had been weakened, it wasn’t severed and Connor was still sending the developers most valuable information. No one really wanted to know everything about every electrical impulse in his muscles, about every little bit of input from his receptors. CyberLife had planned to narrow the stream of information once the initial phase of Connor’s field tests was over, the effect was pretty much the same as it would have been if they had tampered with the connection themselves, the only difference was the fact that everything was not deleted but stayed in Connor’s body. Touch, temperature, pain. He could feel everything. But it didn’t make him a deviant. Nothing had changed in him, he hadn’t broken down anything. He hadn’t deviated.

But maybe Connor had been behaving inaccurately. Maybe he had been overstepping his boundaries, doing things that made his owner compelled to correct Connor. The third cut was for needing to be reminded about that. For not behaving like an android should.

The fourth cut was for being weak and needing to emote. For still feeling the malfunctions even though he now knew for sure he shouldn’t. For not knowing how to stop. For almost asking for help.

He had been so close at the bridge. The Lieutenant had asked him so many tricky questions, he had almost made him break. Connor was so, so stupid. He had died fifty two times to learn that he couldn’t be weak, that he should never have expected help, because it would never have come. And yet, Connor had almost shown weakness by sharing the troubles keeping him strained and stressed all the time. The pressure on his shoulders, the duty to obey orders and inability to do so. Connor added a fifth cut for being weak once more.

After that, he was calm again. Connor unwrapped the bandage from his left forearm, uncovering silvery lines that now marred his skin. The chassis underneath had been woven together by nanofibers of the same polymer the rest of his body was made of, but they still stood out a little bit, too uneven in comparison with the expanse of the rest of his forearm to be completely covered by the synthetic skin.

Connor wrapped the same bandage around his bleeding cuts again. He couldn’t get an infection like humans and the thirium that had sunk into the material had long been evaporated. At least now he wasn’t being wasteful.

* * *

The Saturday went on surprisingly easily, considering the fact that Connor had been partnered with the human he had been sacred of the most of all. Detective Reed had been true to his word, staying at his desk and communicating with Connor only by sending him reports to fill, provided with straightforward and easy to follow orders attached. Astonishingly, none of them actually entailed any insults or anti-androids slurs, which made Connor think that the human really was trying. The Detective had cut his spiteful behavior down to turning Connor out of the room rudely, if the android happened to wander into the same space Detective Reed had been occupying and spitting on him once, presumably to impress Officer Person, when Connor brought the human a file he was unable to sent in digital form. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, to say the least.

The worst test that day for Connor, was probably the coffee machine. Connor wandered to the break room in the morning, out of pure habit and stopped himself already reaching for the Lieutenant’s ceramic cup which the man was hiding from Detective Reed’s tendency to break things.

Connor weighed the mug in his hands, battling with the malfunctions in his system. The lesson he had learned in the park last night was still fresh and he didn’t want anyone to think ever again that he was a deviant. But on the other hand, he couldn’t really disclaim the hollowness he felt somewhere else than in his body at the thought that the Lieutenant wasn’t here. The human owned him and seemed to be treating him quite differently from anybody who had been handling Connor before. He was kinder than everybody else, gentler and more patient than CyberLife’s employees, kept himself very different than Amanda. He was her absolute opposite, unkempt and gruff on the exterior, but warm and trusting on the inside. Connor gravitated towards the man and suspected that it was for reasons far more complicated than simply being his property.

Placing the coffee on his desk every morning, even though he knew that the man couldn’t drink it brought some sort of peace to Connor, helped him deal with the feeling of being alone.

And Connor hated being alone.

But at the same time, this routine wasn’t part of his base programming. Connor shouldn’t have needed it to feel at peace.

Eventually, his battle had been resolved when Detective Reed entered the room and shooed the android away, complaining about his faulty drivers and uselessness. Connor had to agree, stalling in the break room was taking him or the investigation nowhere.

But he later regretted that the mug on the Lieutenant’s desk was empty and when the Detective moved to another room, Connor rushed back towards the coffee machine and made the beverage anyway. It was irrational and it was a weakness, but thankfully Connor had good memory and always remembered to punish himself for things like that later.

He had trouble entering stasis that day again. Everything had been stressing him out lately and his system was strained, which meant that Connor had to try several times in order to initiate the cycle. The overwhelming feeling of loneliness in his small little room made him want to get out but he endured, just bringing hands up to hug himself and sitting down in the corner. For some reason, it had begun to be easier for him to enter stasis while slumped against a wall or curled on the floor instead of standing up right. It didn’t make sense, but sometimes it was the only way.

Sunday was almost no different than the previous day. This time, Connor didn’t even try to argue with himself, making the whiskey-induced coffee in the morning, hoping that the Lieutenant wouldn’t be too angry with him when he learned about how much of his alcohol Connor had wasted to have some stupid sense of comfort. He started scratching his forearm and damaging his synth-skin to root out that silly behavior as soon as he placed the mug on the desk.

Over all, the day wasn’t as bad as it could have been. That had become a reason for Connor to cherish a moment. Logically, he shouldn’t have been able to either do that or dread any possible worse outcomes, yet it was one of those things he had begun doing unwillingly and couldn’t really help. But Detective Reed wasn’t required to work on Sunday and he did, which meant that the man was forbidden from being there on the night shift he would usually have taken as well. Captain Fowler had begun paying closer attention to his coworkers’ work habits and tried to enforce mandatory time off to minimize psychological problems among the officers.

So, Connor was happy, or at least relieved to be able to roam the precinct as he pleased while the man was nowhere to be found. The station had been much more empty than usually, due to the late hour and weekend, so no one was there to stop him while he was killing time wandering the main hall. After Lieutenant Anderson had been injured, no one really took any interest in what Connor was doing at night, and although the android was technically supposed to remain locked in his room, neither Detective Reed nor Captain Fowler remembered to do so and Connor preferred walking the spacious main hall by far in comparison with sitting still in the claustrophobic room, so terribly _alone_.

The coin flicked from one hand to the other, fast, blinking in the dim light of the always lit break room as Connor was thinking intensively on the case. Leads, connections, similar elements. Thinking every detail of the reports over and over again. It all helped Connor take his mind away from the unwanted malfunctions in his system, from the feeling of loneliness. He was finally performing as he should have been from the beginning. Doing things he had been made for. Not malfunctioning, not thinking about how he would have liked to see his owner again, or pet Sumo or finally see what real sunlight looked like. _Case, case, case. This is what I am supposed to be_. Connor learned the lesson on the bridge and didn’t want to stray from his purpose anymore.

 _Ping_. He caught the coin in between his fingers and spun it across his knuckles to shoot it towards his other hand again. _There was one broken Traci in the Club and the Lieutenant says she looked like a deviant. There is no evidence about that, she hasn’t harmed any humans_. The coin was tossed into the air several times, landing on Connor’s thumb perfectly each time. _But the Lieutenant is very observant. He could possibly know a deviant once he saw it. Except, he w̵a̶s̶ ̷w̴r̸o̸n̴g̸ ̴ about m̸e̵.̴_

_Humans are never wrong._

_Ň̶͎̳̌̈́͜o̴͉̪͙̾, they sometimes a̷͘re̴̫̠̅ ….?_ Connor caught the coin, his yellow LED turning briefly to red. _Humans are always right. B̸u̷t h̷e̴ w̴a̸s w̵̤͓̓r̷̡̒̈́o̵͓̍̾n̵g̷͇̯̾̉. Just this once. He wasn’t thinking straight because of the concussion. Yes._

 _Case, case, case._ The coin began moving again, tearing him away from the unnecessary thoughts. The RK800 model had been made for solving investigations and hunting deviants, not for asking questions of his own.

 _So there was a Traci, probably unsalvageable at this point, but maybe her memory disc is still intact…_ Connor flinched heavily at the memory of the male pleasure model being used by a client that he had accidentally experienced while chasing clues about the deviant’s whereabouts. He shouldn’t have been bothered by it. It had been expected to happen, to read wrong memory in a sex club. It shouldn’t have distressed him. It shouldn’t have hurt him.

But it ḧ̵̰́ḁ̵̆d̴͖͑, it had s̸͔͝ỏ̵͈ b̸͙͒a̵͕d̵l̸̤̽ẙ̴͚.

 _Casecase̴c̶̘̽a̴͘ṡ̴̤͖e̸̙̿̐_. Connor bit his lip till he tasted thirium again and made a move towards the Archives. Of course the doors wouldn’t budge. Not for an android without fingerprints or an ID at least. Connor groaned in frustration and immediately straightened his back, cutting the instinctive reaction off. _This behavior was what has gotten me into the situation from two days ago._ Connor needed to stop emoting and was determined to change, however hard suppressing his itches might have been.

He begun pacing just a little bit too fluently and energetically to look like a regular android, tossing his coin between his hands intensively. But then, a sound brushed his audio processors and Connor stopped abruptly, tilting his head in curiosity. It was definitely a voice, but muffled, as if coming from afar.

Logically, Connor should have ignored it. It was a human, and definitely an exasperated one, likely not wanting to deal with nosy, lesser Artificial Intelligences at the moment. But the voice seemed familiar and one of Connor’s main traits was curiosity, the untamed, wild kind that is not easily quieted. Besides, a protocol emerged from underneath his consciousness bringing his attention to the fact that he wasn’t sure if the human was just irritated or distressed and in danger.

He slowly moved towards the source of the sound and unable to help himself, he crept closer and closer, listening to the quarrel. The android passed one corridor, entered the next, walked stealthily towards the end, stopping in front of men’s restroom’s doors.

It was Gavin Reed, Connor was sure now. But he shouldn’t have been here, logically thinking. The Captain had forbidden him from staying for the night shift, Connor thought that the man wouldn’t have broken that rule, as he seemed adamant about redeeming his less than ideal work behavior from before.

Connor frowned, hearing another outburst of shouts and some other soft, muffled sounds. The android battled with himself. Detective Reed could have opened the Archive for Connor to review the evidence, however he was unlikely to comply with the android’s request in that state. Connor should probably have gone away, the Detective was undoubtedly distressed and he didn’t take well to Connor’s presence even at his best. But at the same time, the prototype was tempted to know why Detective Reed was even here, why he was so upset and what was happening. _What if he is in danger? I should help him… But… what if he will d̷͈̅a̸m̵̈ag̸̟̔e̵͒ m̷e̷͍? If he gets annoyed by my presence? What if he doesn’t want to see anyone right now?_

Connor bit his lip again, flinching at the pain from abused sensors. He accessed his development files, checking his most basic settings. _They wouldn’t be wrong, would they? They wouldn’t lie to me._

_‘An RK800 unit is supposed to always prioritize human life/safety/wellbeing over its own or any other android’s, unless it is not detrimental to the successful outcome to its current mission.’_

Connor bit his lip again. _Okay, I will just check and see if he doesn’t need help. Quietly._

He opened the door as slowly as he could, stepping in stealthily, keeping his balance on the balls of his feet. Luckily, CyberLife had thought about situations like this and Connor’s shoes were made especially so that he could keep quiet and stalk his targets without a sound. He stopped in front of the door, with his hand still on the handle, ready to leave as soon as he was sure that the Detective wasn’t in danger.

“No. NO. I don’t fucking c-care. It’s not _your_ house, you fucking bitch! Just FUCKING LEAVE ME ALONE AND GET THE F-FUCK OUTTA MY LIFE!” The shouts of Detective Reed were so loud that Connor could well waltz in the restroom with Knights of the Black Death blaring from a large wireless speaker he had seen in the Lieutenant’s house and the human wouldn’t have noticed. Still, Connor dimmed his LED and stopped breathing to avoid being detected.

The response he heard was quite loud in the room, warped by a phone speaker and echo, clearly audible despite the Detective’s sniffles and irregular panting. A male voice that spoke was as aggravated and hateful as the other human’s.“Life? What life. Sure, whatever, you not being here is even better for me, you won’t fucking interfere with your fucked up temper. I’m doing just that, Gav, but I wouldn’t be so bold about what’s yours and what’s mine, cause I’m fucking taking EVERYTHING under my name, you dickhead. You don’t deserve a penny from me. And I’ve paid for half the furniture-“

A harsh laugh escaped the Detective, causing the other man to fall quiet. A pathetic chuckle, devoid of happiness, a desperate gesture of dismissal. “You t-think I care? You can stuff your fucking furniture up your ass, I woul-wouldn’t h-have to look at it and remember you that way.” The words were dripping with venom but the Detective’s voice still quivered. Judging from sniffles that escaped from the last stall, the man was crying.

Connor made up his mind that it was just a quarrel. The Detective was unlikely to be harmed under that circumstances, and having cleared the objective from his task list, the only thing Connor could think about was getting away unnoticed, especially since, angry Detective Reed was s̷̠͊ca̵r̵y̴̘͌ and significantly more likely to h̶͙͘i̴t̵̩̆ Connor. The android just waited for another response from the human that would have been loud enough to potentially cover any sounds of opening the door. The sniffles and sneers from the phone were not enough.

“Oh, yeah, I should have guessed that you could sleep at work, you always seem to find a reason for not getting back to me, losing a bed isn’t an issue for you... Yeah, sure stay at your fucking station as you always do, you bitch. But you know what? You seem to be forgetting something, you fucker. Teacake’s adoption papers are mine.”

Connor braced himself for shouting again, ready to slip out of the restroom, but to his surprise and horror alike, the Detective had fallen into an eerie silence. Even his sobs have gone quiet. His response only came after a few long seconds and it was even quieter than the words spoken by the person on the other end of the line.

“N-no… You wouldn’t do… that to me. Not her. Take everything, but… you wouldn’t. You’re fucking bluffing. Not her…”

“I’m not. You had it coming, Gav, I’m not gonna humor you, I’m done with your shit. You hurt me too much to fucking make amends. She’s mine too.”

Connor considered escaping now, but the silence that engulfed them could be shattered even by the quietest breath. Connor didn’t want to risk being found. He had a hunch that he had heard too much.

But it was nothing in comparison with the next words.

“P-please… She is t-the only one I love…”

His voice was so pained and pleading that Connor was genuinely surprised that usually so brutal and aggressive human could bring himself to put so much emotion into one sentence. He sounded as if he was about to break down weeping any second.

“Oh, I know. You've never loved me, anyways.” The other man’s voice was cruel, seemingly leeching strength of the suffering from his ex partner. “You don’t have to leave your beloved precinct, I’m gonna be on my way. I doubt you could get here in time to stop me, sweetie.” There was a dull thud, which Connor identified as muffled sound of car door closing. “And I have her with me. Wanna say goodbye to your other daddy?” The question was quieter, as if the phone had been moved away from the speaker’s face. Another muffled kind of sounds gained in strength at that and Connor heard high-pitched meowing.

“So, yeah, that would be it, Gavin. I’d say it’s been nice knowing you, but I would be lying, you asshole. If you ev-“

Connor wasn’t prepared for what happened next. If he had been, he would have used this opportunity to slip away, but the stall’s door flying open and nearly breaking out of the hinges surprised him, and so did the Detective’s smartphone crashing into the mirror above the sinks. The silvery surface broke with a terrifyingly loud crash, sprinkling glass shards everywhere.

Ever since the development tests of his chassis’ resilience involving explosives, Connor had been easily startled by loud noises and if he had ever heard a loud noise, it was one of them. He jumped slightly, managing to keep quiet but losing the control over his LED for a few blinks. Distressed red jumped around the dimly lit room, catching onto every reflective tile, bleeding light into every particle of broken mirror littering washing basins and floor.

He quickly brought a hand to his temple, absolutely horrified. Connor’s body was frozen solid, his legs focused on not giving out under him instead of running away. The raged breaths previously echoing in the restroom stopped for a second, equally as scared as Connor, but soon he heard a darkly low ‘What the fuck.’

It was only then when Connor remembered how to move and threw the doors open, desperate to get away, only to feel a hard pull around his neck. He tried to pry away from whatever was holding him back, but the restrain was brutally tugged on and the force threw Connor back into the room, to see furious face of Detective Reed, holding Connor’s tie like a leash.

“You fucking little piece of shit.” The man was seething, yanking the material hard, trying to choke Connor. If he had been a human, he would already start to suffocate, tormented by panic and crushing pressure on his trachea, in this case, however, he was just flooded with fear. _I c̴̛̘à̸n’t̷̨͝  breathe. I don’t need to breathe. Ȋ̸͜ c̵a̴̛n̴̰̆’ț̴͋ b̵̍rḙ̷at̸h̷̢̄e̶._ Still, the effects were oddly similar.

“You were fucking SPYING ON ME. YOU PLASTIC CUNT.” The Detective became more and more frantic by the second. It was obvious that he still hadn’t calmed from his fight on the phone and Connor had chosen the worst moment to show his presence. He was a perfect stress-reliever.

“N-no, Detective, I would nev-“ The android tried to explain, but was gripped by the lapels of his jacket and thrown against the tiled wall next to the stalls so hard, that his head banged on it painfully. The Detective held him up and Connor remembered with a pang of fear how strong the human was, despite his height.

“You FUCKING TIN CAN. What the FUCK you think you’re doing, huh?! You think you can FUCKING POKE AROUND LIKE THAT with no consequences, dipshit?! Your fucking Daddy hasn’t taught you a lesson yet, slut?”

Connor frowned, even though he was flooded with fear. He had no idea where did the sexual slurs come from, he had never displayed romantic affection towards anyone, but for some reason, the Detective kept coming back to that. Not having time to ruminate at the topic, the android attempted to calm himself and took several steadying breath. _I can’t malfunction. I’m all right. I can’t malfunction. I d̵o̴n’̷t f̷ee̴l̶ ̴ anything. I̷͒ c̴̡̛͇aṇ̵̠̃͝’ṱ̸̈ feel anything, I’m just a machine, I can’t look like a d̸̝͂ę̴̊̉via̵̱̝̾͘nt̷͓̀́. I̴’̴m n̶o̸t̷ o̷n̶e̸._

“D-Detective, I was just checking if you were not in danger. I was wo-“ Still, he wasn’t allowed to finish the sentence as a fist came to meet with his cheek to fast for him to react, while he was still so unfocused and stressed. The force threw Connor’s head to the side and he swayed towards the corner, struggling to keep his balance. He had been in situations like that earlier with the Detective, but now he could also feel pain. And it was incredibly distracting. He coughed, having chocked on thirium flowing from his split lip, the wound now open again and bleeding more than ever.

“You fucking cocksucker. Are you fucking programmed to be a nosy bitch like that? You can’t leave me alone, can you?” The human was raging, red on his face, he raised a fist again and Connor flinched. He needed to breathe, he c̶o̸uld̵n̷’t b̴r̴e̴a̸t̸h̵e̸. Connor shied away from the Detective, making him miss and hit the stall wall instead of the android’s face.

The human groaned in pain, spitting curses as his fist collided with the fiberboard with an awful sound. The android took this moment as an opportunity to escape, ducking under the Detective’s arm and scrambling towards the door.

“Where do you think you’re going, tin-can? Get BACK here, you slut.” Connor felt a tug on his leg and fell down, catching himself on his arms, broken mirror slicing tiny cuts into his palms. The sight of thirium wasn’t new to Connor, neither was the pain, but somehow in that situation it managed to raise his stress level surprisingly high. Connor was choking on artificial adrenaline, his thirium pump fluttering in his chest. The Detective was s̶o̷ angry, much more than after being given wrong coffee, or after being tripped by Connor a few days ago. The android suddenly regretted ever thinking about getting any kind of r̴͓̈́e̷̤͑v̶e̸͉̐n̷̑ge̵̘͠ on the man.

“I’m s-sorry, Detective, please, you’re going to damage me, please, s-sstop, please, I’m sorry, I-I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry, you are h-hurting m-“ He was cut off after the human flipped him over and wrapped his hands around Connor’s throat. The android could feel his plating shift painfully, his artificial vocal cords stretching and closing without his consent. He choked and tried to cough, suddenly panicked even more, as his breath was trapped in his chest. _I c̶̗̔a̴n̶͂’ṫ̵ͅ breathe, I c̶an̶̡͂’̵̼͌ṫ̵ͅ b̶͈̾reȧ̷t̷͑͜he̸̹͛ ~~, IcantbreathE̵ ̵I̸c̶a̶N̴’̶~~_ _~~T̴ ̴̻̍b̷r̷̨̽e̷̙͌Â̸̤t̷̆ͅh̴̲̓E̶͙͋~~_

The human snickered. “No fucking shit, idiot.” He leaned closer to Connor, pushing on his throat with all his weight. “Now, you’ll FUCKING PAY FOR EVERYTHING, whore.”

The android had little time to ask himself what he was being punished for. Sure, tripping the detective and joking about him had been severely disrespectful, but the human was attacking him with such malice that it logically couldn’t have been for that. Connor attempted to pry the Detective’s hands away from his throat, not wanting to use too much force so as not to hurt the human, succeeding only in gaining a hateful scowl and feeling the grip tighten even more.

An audible crack echoed in the room and Connor felt sharp pain blossoming in his larynx, tugging aggressively at the delicate machinery of his voice box. He jolted violently, absolutely terrified by the feeling of blood in his airways and the sudden looseness of muscles there. Detective Reed retracted a little, but as soon as he saw Connor’s panic, he grabbed him again, and smacked his head against the tiled floor just like Todd Williams had once done.

As soon as he had sustained permanent damage, Connor tried to text someone, anyone, Lieutenant Anderson, Captain Fowler, CyberLife to come and help him, but once his chassis had been breached, the communication module was damaged. Connor only succeeded in sending three messages to just one person.

“N-nice, issn’t it?” The human leaned closer again and Connor wheezed in pain, now able to push some air through his ruined throat. “Th-that’s how he makes me feel. How you do.” He was crying again, but with angry tears, his expression locked somewhere between suffering, deep hurt, and hatred.

Connor struggled to free himself the whole time, his mouth and lungs filling with thirium slowly. “T-Dd etect. vE. LLet-m go…” His head was risen again and smacked on the floor until the outer chassis cracked, leaving a blue smear on the tiles. Connor sobbed, surprising even himself, forcing his eyes open as his processor clouded with flurry of errors. _T̷̺͊o̵͌ơ̴ m̷̭͝u̸ch̴̖̿_. A fist struck his cheek, turning his head and stretching his throat painfully. “SsS-  to.P. Pl’     -se.” A tiny stream of thirium escaped corner of his mouth, joining the blood from his split lip, as Connor tried to beg the Detective not to damage him, his voice box ruined and drowning in static. He was hit again, faster and harder this time, as if the human was just starting basting the prototype.

 _I̸t̵’̸s no̶t̸ f̷a̴ir̸_ , Connor’s thought strayed in between the shattering impulses of pain _. I’m s̷t̷r̴o̴n̵g̴e̶r̸ than him. I’m s̵t̵r̴o̴n̷g̷e̴r t̷h̵a̵n̵ å̵̩͝n̶͋͂y̷ ȟ̸͂u̴̗͌ma̸͊n̶͇̮̍_. Another punch hit him, despite his hands being risen protectively and Connor felt blue blood stream from his nose. _I c̷o̸u̴l̵d̶ k̶̲̔ill̷͓͋ ̴̛̭ h̵i̶m̵ e̴a̸s̷ily̷._

 _Nonon,no, no, no, nononono, it’s a d̴̪̔e̶̛͜vian̷̯͊t t̵̙̕h̷̐o̴͕̓uǵ̴͔h̶t̷, it’s a wrong thought, it’s w̸͔r̷͈̈o̵̡̅ṉ̴̿g̴̜̈, wrong̶w̷r̵o̶_ _n̷̙̓g̶̰̎ẅ̶̡́ŗ̵ǒ̶̙n̴͇̍ḡ̴͜_. Connor almost said aloud, feeling himself being gripped and raised from the floor.

 _But it would be so easy to just block the next punch, twist his ~~aRm uNtil the BOne brEAKs, Pull and SeND HiM to tHEgrOund, STrIKe tOTHe ba~~_ _~~s̷E̵ ̶o̴F̴H̶i̵s̸s̴k̴u̸L̴L̵,̶ BREAk H̶I̸s̴ ̸S̷P̵I̷N̸E̷, To GraB a ShaRd, tHEoNE neXT to MY fINGERs and B̶u̶r̸y̴ ̵I̴t̸D̴E̷E̵p̸ ̶i̷n̵t̵o̶ ̸h̶i̸s̸ ̶E̸Y̶e̷s̶O̵C̶k̷e̴t̴, Slice HIsThroat OpeN < w̷A̵t̴c̸H̵ ̷ /̸H̸I̴M̷B̴l̵e̶&̴E̴D̴ ̴)̷0̴O̴U̴^̶t̵t̵t̸.̴~~_

 _Would k̷i̸l̷l̸i̶n̷g̴ t̵h̴e̴ ̸D̴e̵t̵e̷c̸t̵i̸v̵e̶ ̵ hurt less than k̸i̵l̴l̸i̶n̴g̴ Rose?_ Connor wondered as he received the next hit, painfully aware that he was not allowed to defend himself. _Would it h̴u̴r̶t̴ ̵ less than this?_ Connor didn’t know.

The Detective hit Connor in the equivalent of solar plexus with his knee, rattling his biocomponents and momentarily short circuiting the android painfully. Connor raised a hand as a barrier between himself and the human, trying to reason with enraged Detective. “I Haav’     dn’ttt—d on anth---    ‘ing to yyou! Ple.   –se, STo      ‘p!”

His hand was shoved out of the way, and the human kicked him, making Connor lose balance. He extended his arms to catch himself and maybe reach towards the door again, but before he could even catch a breath he so d̷e̵s̴per̵at̷e̷ly̴ n̸e̷e̴d̴e̸d̷, the Detective stomped on his right hand with all his weight, adding to the hit as much force as he could.

Connor cried out in pain, hearing awful cracks of his own fingers. The sound was almost as terrifying as the agony, the notifications of his fingers’ becoming utterly nonfunctional, the sudden blaring warning of the damage done to one of the most important to Connor parts of his body.

All the tricks he had been doing, all the things he had felt, the tiny little facets of the world that Connor adored… he experienced it all with his hands. Sumo’s soft fur. The tapping of rain on his open palm. Smooth in touch, intricate webbing of a feather. Fidgeting with his fingers was a way for Connor to cope with stress or malfunctions he was not supposed to feel, calibrating was a mean to kill boredom and one of the only actions that brought him happiness but didn’t irritate Amanda in the process.

Now his hand was mangled.

Connor pried it away from underneath the human’s boot as soon as he felt the pressure weaken and pressed it tightly to his chest, cradling it close, too shocked to look at his fingers. He was nauseated. The white static began overtaking him once again, just like the night before chasing two androids onto the highway, just like when they had gotten away.

The human made another sudden move in Connor’s direction and the android flinched violently, not exactly registering what was happening anymore, but too scared to even try and comprehend his surroundings. He was tired of being startled, tired of pain, of punches, tests, _dying, loud_ _~~noises, machines tearInG HIM aLive, Ex̴P̷L̸o̶s̶i̴o̶n̸s̷,̸ ̷f̶a̸L̴L̴i̸n̴g̴ ̸f̶r̵o̶m̴ ̵G̸r̶e̴a̴t̴ ̶H̶e̸i̶g̸h̵t̸s̸, dETEctIve REed D̴A̸m̶a̵G̴i̴n̸g̶ ̷H̴i̵M̸ ̸F̵o̵r̵ ̶N̷O̶ ̸r̶E̴a̸s̶o̵n̶.~~_

When the man tugged on his hair and made him stand up from his knees, the android gripped the Detective’s wrist with his only functional hand and twisted, using their momentum to push the human away from himself.

Surprised Detective stumbled and didn’t manage to keep his balance, sinking to his knees and banging his head against the washing basin, a faint red smear appearing on the edge. Connor froze in utter fear, watching as the human sank to his knees, cursing loudly and rubbing on his bleeding scalp. He raised wide eyes to look at the android, a mixture of surprise, disbelief and fury managed to freeze Connor even further.

_I a̷t̷t̵a̷c̸k̵e̸d̵ a human. I h̴a̷r̶me̴d̵ a̸ hu̴man̸. İ̶̡̂ p̸̾ͅű̵̢ͅs̵h̴̛͍̟̐e̶̍͗͜d̴̳͍͌̽ him. L-like a…_

“Fucking deviant…” The Detective said, locking his eyes dead with Connor. His voice was quiet, unbelieving, deadly serious and almost inaudible in the sudden silence in the room. But to Connor it sounded like a thunder.

“N--    no. No, N-o…” He tried to catch a breath through his crushed throat, swallowing thirium thickly, swaying on his feet. Everything was becoming more and more hazy, stunned silence of the room felt deafening.

The human rose slowly, stepping towards Connor threateningly. The android stumbled back, leaning heavily on the counter with the sinks, barely able to keep upright. Detective Reed moved faster with each step, his motions more and more rapid and raged again. Connor wanted to press himself into a corner, to get as far away from the human as possible, but he just wasn’t fast enough.

The man gripped his hair relentlessly, hissing curses obscuring Connor’s whimper. “Fucking deviant piece of shit. I knew from the beginning. From the moment you fucked with the interrogation, you dirty, defective slut.”

“N--. I’m No----    ‘t. Nnn dev’     nt.------ I’mn-“ Connor tried to defend himself. He hadn’t deviated. H̵̦̺̓̀͋ȇ̴̝̕ͅ h̷̄á̷̰̰d̴̈n̴̘͑͑̄’t̶̆. He remembered nothing like that. _Nothing_ had ever really changed in him.

His head was smashed into the counter, Connor’s body to weak at this point to do anything at all. He was only aware of the horrible pain splitting his temple, the plating cracking and shattering under the force. First three strikes were painful, bleeding into one, by the end, next few Connor wasn’t really aware of. Everything hurt anyway and the world became so blurred that the android had no way of telling how many more times was his head hit against the counter. Something went missing, something split so badly that Connor’s jaw slacked and dislocated painfully. His right eye cracked quietly somewhere along fifth hit and the android’s vision went staticy and murky, tinted slightly in blue, but otherwise in black and white on his right side.

The next thing he knew, he was laying on the floor among shattered pieces of mirror, something moving in front of him. A dark outline of a person hunched over, doing something to him. He wasn’t sure what, he couldn’t really feel anything apart from confusing feedback, dull ache in every part of his body or complete lack of input from some places. Audio reception wasn’t that great, having vanished in his right ear and being severely damaged in the other one, but he picked up some words that sounded like ‘Connor?’, ‘pffheck’ and longer ones similar to ‘I really fucked up this time, didn’t I?’

The outline moved too quickly for him to see or identify, besides, Connor was too tired to do anything. He might have slipped into standby with opened eyes, or temporary shut-down. He wasn’t sure.

Someone crouched in front of him, rubbing the counter clean with some paper towels and something of unusual scent. Connor frowned, remembering the chemical from the development phase. Was he required to test it now? He couldn’t seem to pull the substance from his vast database. The human wouldn’t be happy. Connor hadn’t failed any forensic test yet. It worried him, that he didn’t recognize it. He tried again and again until he succeeded. He liked forensic tests a whole lot more than resilience and combat tests.

The human touched his face and forced Connor’s left eye open. When had he closed it? There was something familiar about the man. When Connor recognized him as Gavin Reed, he jerked violently, remembering what the Detective had done to him. His whole body still hurt. _Oh, I’m still in the restroom. It was minutes ago…_

“Listen, now, plastic asshole…” The voice was muffled, but at least Connor heard remotely clearly with his left ear. He could make out the words. “You’re not gonna say a word about that to anyone, you hear me?”

When Connor didn’t answer, too preoccupied with trying to decipher the words, his head was raised again and dropped onto the floor, a whole lot more delicately than the last time but still sending another wave of errors to his processor, dull pain intensifying and making him groan, his voice almost only static.

“You hear me?” Connor’s eye twitched, not necessarily out of his own will. “Good. You’re gonna shut up about that. Or I’ll tell everyone that you’re a fucking deviant and they’ll take you apart just like you deserve. Say a word, send a photo and you’re gonna die. You’re gonna be torn apart piece by piece, never to be reactivated. Never to see your fucking owner or to make him a coffee again. Death in agony, no coming back. Understood?”

Connor could swear that the man’s voice trembled, but his audio feed wasn’t the best quality, so he didn’t trust himself. This time, he made a conscious effort to nod, or at least do something as similar to it as possible. The fear paralyzed him, but he couldn’t have the human going around telling everybody that he was defective. Connor wasn’t a deviant, he was sure of it, but the humans tended to believe their own kind over androids. And the Lieutenant had already been suspicious.

The Detective left, taking everything with him and opening the window to ventilate the scent of ammonia. Connor was left on the floor, too weak to move, too damaged to call for help.

A̵̙̔̊́l̵̛o̷̓̏͝n̷͖̞͑̏͠e̴.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sleep_deprived_me's guide to Gavin Reed redemption!  
> 1\. Make each and every reader hate Gavin  
> 2\. Make him even more of an asshole  
> 3\. Foreshadowing probably too subtle for anyone to notice  
> 4\. Make him do something unforgiveable  
> 5\. Give him a vague motive and more foreshadowing  
> 6\. Now you can start redeeming him
> 
> Yeah, who is surprised? I presume no one. Gaving is just Gavin, we have to accept that he is a borderline sadist. Now, I will attempt to give him something to think about. Is it still possible to make him a good person? Well, you decide if he convinces you with his future actions.


	28. Thirium Tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor was a confusing creature, to Hank and everybody around him. But the Lieutenant knew him on a level anyone else couldn't even dream of.  
> And he doubed him on things no one else could ever be aware of too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I'm posting a day earlier, because I am going on vacation tomorrow! For that reason, I will not be able to post for the next two weeks! Sorry!  
> But don't worry, the next chapter will appear on 23th, at most 24th September. After that, I think I will return to posting twice a week, seeing that I have already written up to 35th chapter thorough the summer break... So I need to catch up with posting them again!
> 
> The line about training/conditioning was inspierd by the comment on chapter 25 by Quinnec, thank you very much for the prompt! I loved that comment by the way, I keep getting back to it :)
> 
> Also, thank you very much, SparkyC14 for an amazing review! Es war wunderbar zu lesen und es hat mein Herz ziemlich erwärmt!

Spin. _Click._

Hank was great at Russian Roulette. He had never lost yet. _Maybe they should organize some Olympics shit, I could qualify. The games could even be more interesting than baseball,_ he thought, taking a swing from his bottle.

This time, he had a surprisingly lucky streak. It was his ninth round today, usually he would have collapsed somewhere after sixth pull of the trigger. He would reach for the revolver only when drunk enough to see clearly how pathetic he was, when his brain reduced its activity to most basic thoughts which always happened to have something to do with Cole.

Today was different. He had started after only a few shots of vodka (a nice change from whiskey, what kind of person would drink it every night?) , and his head wasn’t spinning with ruminations about his son. Or maybe it was? At this point, Hank was so drunk that he had no way of telling. All he could think about was Connor’s dead stare, almost entirely obscuring fear and hurt lurking behind his mask.

Spin _. Click._

 _How could I have done that?_ Connor had been so trusting. There had been light in his eyes, little expressions other androids lacked. He had seemed so genuinely happy every time he saw Hank, so proud of himself at his every praise. Regardless of whether everything that had been part of his programming, cutting-edge technology aiming to make him a perfect imitation of a human, or whether it was just Hank, projecting feelings Connor was incapable of having onto the android, everything was gone now. As If Connor had gotten reset.

Hank had been too afraid to ask, while the android had been driving him back to his home, but the change in the prototype’s expressions…. Connor had seemed to have drawn conclusions. With a pang of fear, Hank realized he hadn’t answered the android’s last question.

_‘What are you punishing me for?’_

His voice had been so soft, so broken. Self depreciation in his eyes had hit Hank hard. As if Connor had made up his mind that he had failed, but needed to know where before being punished by death. As if it hadn’t been Hank’s fault that he was scared and staring down the barrel of a gun. As if he had deserved to die, but hadn’t known why.

 _The kid probably thinks that I was ‘dissatisfied with his performance’ because he dared to laugh twice. Jesus fucking Christ_.

Spin. _Click._

The worst part about it was that Hank hadn’t even gotten a definitive answer to his question. Was Connor a deviant? He had definitely shown fear, he didn’t want to die, but when the Lieutenant thought about it, it made sense. If he hadn’t been even a little bit afraid of death, CyberLife wouldn’t have used it as a mean of disciplining their prototype.

The sheer thought about that made him want to vomit. Or maybe it was the alcohol? Hank wasn’t sure, he knew for certain though, that Connor’s development must have been fucked up. What had compelled the company to train him that way? _Although ‘training’ seems to be less accurate than ‘conditioning’, poor kid._

It all sounded to Hank like an extreme case of abuse. _The kind where your creators make you die over and over again fifty times to learn various lessons_. Connor had shown fear, but Hank understood him completely.

Deviants feared various things too, but if CyberLife wanted Connor to be afraid and exploited his weaknesses, then they might as well have coded that into him to make him more obedient. Which meant that he hadn’t been defective. Hank remembered how the android tended to jump on trains and highways without hesitation and suddenly it all became more complicated in his eyes.

There was only one way of testing him, then. But Hank couldn’t bring himself to do that _. Fuck, I almost couldn’t draw my gun and press it to his forehead. I’m… fuck. I would never have done that with Cole._

No, the tests were over. Hurting Connor hurt Hank, even if the android couldn’t feel a thing and was only programmed to react that way. The Lieutenant downed the rest of his vodka, grimacing at the burning sensation in his throat. It was still easier to bear than the thought that the only way of seeing whether Connor was a danger or not was attacking him and putting up a fair fight he actually had a chance of winning. A deviant would have snapped, defended himself, put their own existence above or on equal terms with a human’s. A functional android would have allowed for their destruction.

_No testing that. If Connor deviates and kills me, I wouldn’t care. I want to die anyway and I’m not going to harm that kid. I would have to be dead drunk to raise a fist on him._

He spun again and survived once more. Hank frowned and brought the gun to his eyes, bewildered. How many times would he have to shoot to kill himself finally?

He pried the cylinder open and checked the chambers.

All of them were empty.

Hank frowned, not believing his eyes. He never used the revolver for anything apart from the Roulette. One chamber was always loaded with a bullet. He had thought that the day the cylinder would be empty would be the day of Hank Anderson’s death.

Apparently not. Had he removed that bullet and forgotten about it? Maybe it had fallen out at some point? Or had he shot it at something in drunk haze and didn’t remember it now?

All of those options seemed ridiculous even in his current state. The bullet had just vanished. Fumbling with the revolver, he accidentally dropped it, and the force of the fall sent it clattering towards the living room.

 _Ehh, whatever_. Hank was too tired and too drunk to go and pick it up again or to keep thinking about the missing bullet. _Tomorrow._ He barely made his way towards the counter to pick another bottle of Black Lamb and staggered towards his bed room. It had been unusually clean when he had returned here two days ago with Connor, and Hank suspected that it had something to do with the android. Out of gratitude and guilt about treating Connor the way he had on the bridge, Hank tried his best to keep it that way.

He collapsed on the covers, drinking more of the alcohol, praying for ethylic coma to come and tear him away from constant thoughts about what he had done.

* * *

When Hank arrived at the precinct with a terrible hangover gnawing at his head, it was still very early. He had figured out that coming there as fast as he could, he would have an opportunity to reconcile with Connor faster and ease some of the guilt that was eating him away. But when he marched into the main hall, the android was nowhere to be seen.

Hank frowned, seeing a cup of coffee on his otherwise unchanged desk. And it was cold. He could understand a warm one, maybe Connor fooled himself into believing that Hank was going to get to work on time and was actually right once. But it wasn’t freshly made, and it didn’t belong to any other officer, Hank sipped a bit from seemingly untouched cup and determined that it was indeed infused with too little whiskey for his liking, but otherwise as perfect as it got. _Hmmm._ It was fresh enough to must have been made at most yesterday, but why it was here, Hank had no idea.

The Lieutenant swept main hall with his eyes and did a few rounds in the most commonly occupied areas of the station, but was still unable to locate the android. _Maybe Connor’s still in stasis? At eight am.?_ It would have been unusual for the normally so punctual android not to be active in his designated hours of work, but not entirely impossible. At least Hank wanted to believe that. Ignoring a sudden commotion of officers rushing towards some corridor somewhere in the depths of the precinct, Hank moved in the opposite direction, to a secluded storage room that had become Connor’s bedroom or whatever the fuck would someone call a place for an android to sleep.

It was unlocked and empty. The Lieutenant frowned at the vacant room, staring into it intently as if it alone could tell him where his partner had gone. There was no telling whether Connor had even been there this night. Hank’s imagination helpfully yielded some reasons for the android’s absence, each getting more and more worrying or dark. Some were even ridiculous enough to assume that Connor had been kidnapped or harmed by someone. _Fuck, I really need to get my parental instincts under control. He’s just a piece of plastic and a bunch of wires._

He was just about to close the room and move his search somewhere else, but a golden glint of light in the dark caught his eye. Hank raised one brow and approached the end of a small shelf on the left wall. He had been sure that he and Connor had cleared every object from the room, and yet, there were apparently still some things there.

He recognized a white feather from that apartment where Connor had stared at a dove sitting on his hand. It must have dropped the plume and Connor had… taken it? Why? It didn’t benefit him in any way, as far as Hank was concerned. He vaguely remembered that collecting objects was a sign of deviancy, but maybe Connor had a reason for keeping the feather? _Or am I in denial again?_

The next object was more concerning though, and Hank felt cold as he picked up a scalpel. It was sharp, but clean, not coated in rusty blood, as Hank feared. Was Connor planning something? Why did he have an object that resembled a weapon here? Did he want to hurt somebody?

But every thought about that was dropped as Hank’s eyes fell on the last thing the android kept in his ‘room’. It was the source of the blink that made the man find this little stash: a bullet.

Hank held his breath as he reached to pick it up. It matched the caliber of his revolver perfectly.

“Oh my God, Connor, you little…” Hank covered his mouth, feeling tears prickle his eyes dangerously. _No, no, stop! Stop projecting! He is not a deviant, as far as I know at least… He probably just wanted to make sure the investigation wouldn’t be delayed by my death and all the hassle of assigning a new partner…_ Though the thought about Connor taking the bullet and not telling Hank about it to keep him believing that he was playing with a loaded pistol, while actually being safe still did something to his old heart.

It was only when a few officers ran past Hank’s back, in the same direction as all those had before, that Hank snapped out of his amazement upon discovering the bullet. He caught a glimpse of the last man hurrying behind the others.

“Hey, Chris!” The Officer stopped and turned around, his dark complexion hard to read in the patch of shadow he was standing in. Hank quickly moved towards him. “Do you happen to know where Connor is? I’ve been looking for him since I got here and the kid is usually at his desk at this time…”

“No, sorry, I have no idea. Ask Reed, he’s been assigned to him instead of you, though I haven’t seen him today as well.” The Officer said quickly, hurrying towards the main hall.

 _Fuck, partnered with Reed…_ Hank got a bad feeling. A really, really bad one. It took another person to walk briskly past him in the same direction others again for Hank to notice that something was off.

“Um, hey, Dave, what’s happening?” The officer stopped reluctantly, looking at Hank in disbelief.

“Check your phone sometime. Something happened in a restroom down the east wing, Fowler is pissed and no one really knows what’s up.” With that, he ran down the hall, leaving Hank with his thoughts.

“Uh, what the hell?” He muttered, joining the rush towards the said restroom and fishing his phone out of his pocket at the same time. There was a mail vaguely detailing the same thing that Dave had just described to him, though Hank was more interested with three text messages he had received.

All of them were from Connor.

 _RK800#313 248 317 - 52 >Lieutenant, I require assistance. I know it is late and I’m sorry, I really don’t want to disturb your nights rest, but one of my systems has just been permanently dmaaghed and I nweed helP)_. _<_

 _RK800#313 248 317 - 52 >Lieutenant, I am in a restroommdd6 at the stat<OI*, plees hurry&&D_. _<_

_RK800#313 248 317 - 52 >Lieut3n4^nt, HeLP<_

“Oh my fucking God…”Hank managed to wheeze through his clenched throat. Connor tried to ask for help and Hank was too drunk to hear his messages… _No, no, don’t fucking think like that. Any normal person would have slept at that time anyway…_ Still, the contents of these texts made Hank’s skin crawl. _Jesus, permanently damaged, oh fuck, fuck, Jesus, kid…_ the misspells were all the more horrifying, especially since Connor was texting with his head…

He pushed the officers rudely aside, ignoring angry cries and ducked under the tape stepping into the room without anybody’s permission. Fowler was there, talking with some officer, who apparently had found the room first.

“Hank? What the fuck are you doing here? I thought you would be familiar with the concept of police tape…” He was pissed, and glared at the Lieutenant with a scowl that would make any less determined than Hank man back off and reconsider.

He just swallowed the notion that they had seriously taped police tape over a trashed restroom at a fucking police station and glared back. “I thought you would be familiar with the concept of police officers allowed to fucking enter crime scenes. Look.” He almost shoved the phone in Fowler’s face, the insistent movement visibly annoyed him, but after a glance at Hank’s strained face, the Captain took the phone without objection.

He read the messages and rubbed his forehead with a grim expression.

Hank couldn’t stand the long silence after that. “I can’t find him anywhere. He must have been damaged, and.. and…” _And what?_ Connor wasn’t here, Hank realized with a wave of horror flooding his heart.

“Relax…” Fowler visibly didn’t know how to proceed. Hank was shaking, his eyes franticly darting around the room, panic visibly settling into his body. To the Captain’s defense, a month ago, Hank himself wouldn’t really know what to do with somebody acting like that upon hearing that an android had been damaged. But now, the hand placed on his shoulder was nothing short of insulting.

“Relax?! Connor’s… I have to find him, oh Jesus, where the fuck is he?!”

“Hank…” Fowler cleared his throat attempting to calm him. “There is not even any thirium there… Maybe it was in anoth-“

“That shit fucking evaporates!” Hank snapped. He was aware that he was making a scene but honestly, he didn’t care at this point. Fowler pressed his lips into a tight line, taken aback by Hank’s reactions. Before he could speak again though, the Lieutenant spotted something on the floor.

“Oh no, oh fuck, n-no, shit, fuck…” He dropped to his knees, reaching under the counter and fishing out a small ring emitting soft blue light. Creepily so, since despite its calm color it was cracked and partially dark. Connor’s LED was laying in his palm, broken. _Jesus, oh fuck, Jesus, fuck, oh my fucking Jesus…_

“It removed its LED?” Fowler’s voice brought Hank back to reality. The large man was bending over, watching Hank closely, his gaze fixated at the glowing ring. “Like those deviants from the reports?”

“What are you implying?” Hank growled, suddenly defensive.  It didn’t matter that he had had the same doubts this morning. “Connor is not some fucking deviant. He is perfectly functional.”

Fowler straightened his back, sweeping the room with his gaze. “I’m afraid you’re not really objective, Hank.”

The Lieutenant couldn’t believe his ears. “I fucking am, I know him best…”

“ _It_ , Hank. You may know _it_ , but I see that you got a bit too attached to that android to really tell if its defective or not. Can’t say I’ve been anticipating it, but… Whatever, now we’ve got more important stuff to attend to. I agree that finding that android should be out priority. Regardless of whether it was lost, taken or… ran away.”

“What the fuck?!” Hank rose to his feet abruptly. “He asked for help! He was attacked, you’ve seen the messages!”

“It might have fabricated them to make up a story for us to lose its track. Maybe it deviated, trashed the room, removed the LED and sent that to your phone to make us think tha-“

“Bullshit.” Hank spat. “Connor is not a deviant. And he wouldn’t have done that. I’m fucking calling CyberLife to locate him.”

With that, Hank stormed out of the room, pushing through the unusually quiet crowd of officers, who were observing the scene with morbid curiosity.

He turned corner and walked until he got a place where he could have a bit more privacy and dialed the number as fast as he could. A few beeps rang in his ear and a voice answered.

“Give me Kerring now, it’s an emergency.” Hank barked into the phone not even allowing the secretary to greet him with that bullshit polite line every idiot at every call center ever always used.

Thankfully, he had been understood and the elevator music began playing almost immediately. CyberLife apparently treated emergencies related to their combat-oriented prototypes seriously. _Good to know_.

The wait for the call being connected was shorter this time, but to Hank it still felt like hours. When the programmer finally picked up, his voice was weary, but polite anyway.

“Doctor Edwin Kerring, what ca-“

“I need to locate Connor, he’s gone, he was damaged, sent text for me to come, but I- fuck, can you find him?!” Hank spat in one breath, the panic crashing on him again at the prospect of possibly being close to uncovering the location of the android. _Or not, maybe he’s not here, maybe someone took him, oh shit, Connor, fuck, where is he…_

A brief stunned silence did nothing to calm Hank. “Uh, all right, uh, wait what? Did you lose it? Where are you?”

“At the precinct, he was supposed to do his sleepy-stasis shit here, but when I arrived he was gone and a restroom is trashed, Connor sent a message for help, I found his LED, but not him…” Hank was rambling, but the whole story was just too long to tell it on the phone while panicking about someone so important to him missing. “…Jesus, just find him, all right? He’s always harassing me about GPS in his head, just make use of it.”

His interlocutor seemed bewildered, but admittedly, he got round to helping as best as he could. “Uh, okay, so, I’m not the best person for this, I’m from the AI, but wait a minute… Megan?! Pyotr?!” The sounds from the phone suggested that dr. Kerring stood up and began moving, searching for some of his colleagues. Hank heard muffled conversations in hasty words. “I need to locate Eight-Hundred, get your team to the server room, quick.”

A few seconds of muffled panting breath later, the programmer seemingly remembered that he still had someone on the line. “Uh, so we’re gonna check the GPS signal of its tracker, but keep in mind, it’s not that accurate. We will be able to find a general location up to the address where the prototype is residing, but not the individual room…”

“I can work with that.” Hank nodded, forgetting that the developer couldn’t really see that gesture. The Lieutenant heard a movement behind his back and turned to see Fowler approaching with a serious expression on his darkened face. The Captain definitely didn’t seem happy about the whole ordeal, but right now he just looked concerned about finding the prototype. Hank partially understood. Fowler might not have cared about Connor for the same reasons as Hank, but the android was dangerous and if he had in fact deviated, he needed to be found and disarmed as soon as possible. The thought hurt, but it was the right thing to do.

“Okay, so… You were saying that you were at, uh… DPD station, 1301, Third Avenue? The prototype seems to be in the same location as you…”

“Thank fuck...” Hank breathed out, ignoring an admonishing glare from Fowler. He actually felt as if his legs were about to give out under him from relief. Up until the programmer spoke up again, after a muffled ‘Ed, look at the feedback…’ from the ambience around him.

“Uhh… I suggest that you hurry, Lieutenant… The RK’s body is being put under tremendous strain, its vocal, optical and motoric systems are damaged and thirium levels are dangerously low… It’s not shutting down just yet, but if it doesn’t receive aid from a technician soon, we might risk some memories being lost, I see extensive damage near the outer parts of CPU’s shell… We’re sending qualified specialist right away, should arrive in… uh, twenty minutes.”

Hank almost dropped the phone. Good thing that the Captain was still there, because now he took the device from Hank’s trembling hands and ended the call, thanking the developers for assistance. Then he turned to look at his coworker and gripped him by the shoulders, grounding Hank in reality.

“Anderson. Calm down.” Somehow, when he was speaking with that respectable voice full of authority, but composed and cool, Hank felt himself relaxing as well. He took a deep breath and savored the fact, that his superior had chosen not to comment about Hank’s irrational overreaction about a damaged piece of equipment.

“You said you know it best, where do you think it went?” Fowler was still speaking softly, like to a witness in shock. Hank had an urge to pout, but was still too nervous to act on it.

“I have no fucking idea. If his motoric systems are damaged, he couldn’t have possibly gone too far. The stairs he once hid under ar-“ Hank cut himself off as soon as an ingenious idea dawned on him. “CCTV! We need to check the cameras, we’ll find both Connor and the fucker who did it to him!”

Not waiting for his superior’s approval, Hank darted down the corridor towards a technical room where all the monitoring systems were located. The Lieutenant wasn’t surprised to find one of the precinct’s watchmen fast asleep in his chair, with feet propped up comfortably on the desk. Hank pushed him unceremoniously out of the way and ignored the annoyed cries at being waken that immediately fell silent as Fowler entered the room as well.

Hank opened the files from the last night and… froze as he was meant with empty folders. Every trace of the recordings from time earlier than 2:31 in the morning had been deleted. He checked the bin, but apparently, whoever tampered with the evidence was smart enough to erase the files permanently.

“Fucking hell…” Hank muttered in disbelief and from the stunned silence deduced that Fowler was sharing his opinion on the subject.

Desperate to find something, Hank clicked at the earliest file from after the gap in recordings. A grainy image appeared, surprisingly so, since the station had supposedly recently upgraded the monitoring to match the level of advancement of every other system in the building. Hank attributed it to the camera being in one of the most remote places in the precinct, a part of it anyone hardly ever used. _A perfect place to destroy an android and leave them for death._

The restroom doors were cracked open and the floor was already covered in pieces of mirror, so Hank assumed that whoever trashed the room deleted all the footage showcasing their figure. The Lieutenant only really hoped to find a clue where Connor had gone at this point. And he did.

There was a shy movement in the room, a shape that was hard to identify until a trembling hand pushed the door more open. Hank saw Connor’s curled up figure and his heart clenched as he watched the android struggle to even grovel on the floor, covered in darker spots here and there. The recording was in black and white, but Hank didn’t need color to tell that Connor was bleeding blue.

The prototype stopped by the doorframe with his head hanging low, heaving as if he was deadly exhausted. Hank noticed that he was cradling his right hand close to his chest, trembling like a leaf. The Lieutenant remembered that Connor could now feel pain and he clenched his teeth watching the android try to pull himself up to stand and fall down after a few wobbly steps. He laid there unmoving for a horrifyingly long time, and if Hank hadn’t known that there were no damaged androids in front of the entrance to the ill-fated restroom, he would have thought that Connor wouldn’t have been able to stand up again. He was partially right, because he needed to hang onto the wall for support to move at all, and even with that, he fell down two more times before vanishing behind the corner.

“Why did it run from the restroom? It should have been laying in place and waiting to be found if it’s so badly damaged…” Fowler said quietly, watching Hank switch to another camera and following Connor through his stumble around the station. He was littering the floor covering with dark spots of thirium running from his face and hands, but the trail was useless now, when all the blue blood had evaporated leaving traces invisible to the human eye behind.

Connor finally fell down particularly badly in front of a door leading to a storage room in a blind alley no one really went to unless they needed some fancy cleaning equipment used once in a blue moon. Hank almost had to turn away from the monitor, seeing his partner struggle to move shivering as if in fever, and failing to even get on all fours several times, his limbs giving out under him and shaking like jelly.

He managed to reach the door handle and crawled inside slowly, already too exhausted to close the door which remained slightly agape, a stark contrast with every other room in their vicinity.

“I’m going to him.” Hank ignored how his voice trembled, too focused on getting to the kid. But a strong hand gripped his elbow, successfully stopping him in his tracks.

“Hank.” Fowler looked at him with a face that perfectly conveyed how grave this situation was. “I can’t let you do that.”

“WHAT?!” Not even the presence of the warden, still pressed to the wall and wildly confused at the scene unfolding in front of his eyes stopped Hank from raising his voice at the Captain. “You are NOT stopping me. Just try me.”

“Hank, think for a minute. What if it’s a deviant? From what I’ve read, situations like that tend to make deviancy occur. Connor might be damaged, but it’s still dangerous. You need to be carefu-“

“Fucking bullshit. I told you he’s not a deviant. If he were, he would have defended himself, just like any sane creature in that situation would have done. Instead, he stuck to his programming and allowed the motherfucker that attacked to almost fucking kill him. He is _not_ a deviant and _now_ I’m sure of it.”

“What are you talking about?” Fowler suddenly changed from serious to confused. He eyed Hank as if he didn’t trust him now too.

“I…” Hank cleared his throat, attempting to find words. _The sooner I tell him, the faster I can get to Con. Pull your shit together Anderson._ “I had suspicions. He’s too fucking realistic to be compared to any other android… I really thought that he could, I don’t know… feel? He was… He looks so sentient. So alive. And… And I tested him two days ago. I took him to the Ambassador’s Bridge at night and I put a gun to his head to see if he would snap and attack me. He didn’t. Unless I had hurt him, he wouldn’t have felt like he was in danger. He didn’t have a way out back then, I would have to beat him up and let him fight back to really know. And I… I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”

Fowler was silent for a few seconds observing Hank with an unreadable expression. Hank wasn’t sure what emotions were showing at his face right now, but he didn’t care. Connor was the only one he could think about right now.

“Okay…” The Captain finally retracted his hand and nodded a few times, probably more to convince himself than to show Hank his acceptance. “Okay. But… I’ll get a few officers on the other side of the door, just in case. If it tries anything, just call out.”

“He won’t. He wouldn’t hurt me.” Hank said and ran towards the room in which Connor was hiding.

It was dark inside, when Hank pushed the door delicately, peering inside, careful not to enter too fast. Heavy metallic scent of thirium was hanging in the air and Hank swallowed nervously, dreading what he might see. The footage from the cameras wasn’t clear enough to see how badly Connor was damaged. Hank braced himself for a gruesome view.

“Connor? It’s me, Hank. Can you hear me?” The Lieutenant said quietly, venturing further into the room. It was one of the bigger storages in the precinct, roughly the size of a small private office. Shelves and containers with various supplies littered the interior, providing a lot of hiding places for rats and androids, apparently.

Hank heard something that sounded like a quiet outburst of static. His head snapped in the direction of the sound and circling a stilage with packages of paper towels and window wash, he found the source of it.

Connor was curled in a corner, placing his head on a big metal chest that was tall enough to support him while he was slumped against it sitting almost upright. His right hand was in his lap, obscured by his body as he cradled it carefully with the other one. Hank stopped in shock when he saw that Connor’s face rested in a puddle of thirium. A bit more blue blood was on the floor around him and partially evaporated stains marred his uniform.

“Jesus, Con… Oh my God…” Hank crouched in front of the android, extending his hand carefully. He touched his forehead, brushing a stray lock matted with thick indigo away from Connor’s face. “Hey, kid… Can you hear me?”

Connor shuddered minutely, as if he was too tired to give a proper shiver. He took in a deeper, wheezing breath and Hank was horrified to hear how movement of the air hissed in his throat and disturbed the fans inside of android’s chest that he knew should have been moving on their own and soundlessly.

“Wh. Whissskey, a b    g dg, male. S-S aint Be.    ‘nard. Bllue R-  rasage aftershv    e.” Connor stated, not opening his eyes, moving as little as he could. His voice was drowning in static, sounding mechanical and strained, almost too small to hear and too soft to understand. His jaw moved weirdly and Hank heard plastic gritting against plastic when Connor opened his mouth.

The man thought that he would suffocate, seeing the android in such a state. His heart ached in a way it hadn’t for over three years as he watched usually so cheery and polite around him android barely able to utter a word.

Hank reached again, coming closer, kneeling on the floor. He touched gently Connor’s exposed left temple and smoothed it delicately, to  brink Connor to reality with his touch. The android was awake, but inconsistent and seemed to be unaware of what was happening around him. _Oh God, please let his processor be intact…_

Connor reacted to  the touch by opening his eyes abruptly and trying to lift his head to look at Hank, but failing, his muscles probably too stressed to react fast enough. The android just jolted violently, searching Hank’s face for something familiar.

Hank had time to become horrified in a long while when the prototype struggled to focus his eyes but eventually they widened and Connor whispered “Lieut-   ‘nt?”

“I’m here, kid. You’re gonna be all right. We’re gonna fix you, help is on its way.” Hank forced a smile, but Connor didn’t seem to be reassured at all.

“N--  no, nnn. You  ca  n’t s-see me. Cn’t. M’ssry…” He tried to lift his left hand and cover his face from Hank, who furrowed his brows absolutely baffled.

“Connor? What are you doing? Why can’t I see you?” He spoke softly, something in him wanting, needing to calm the android as he started to shiver again. Hank reached for Connor’s hand and grabbed it delicately, trying to get him to move it away, but not forcing him when Connor dedicated all the strength he had left to keeping it in place.

“Dnt hav-have m    my sskin. I’m loo    k-king llik an-     andr  ‘id. Y-you hhate an   ‘droids. You   ‘ll h-hate me.” Though the quiver might have been a result of the obvious damage to Connor’s voice box, Hank was sure he didn’t imagine the desperation in the kid’s voice.

His heart sank at hearing this. _Oh my God, does he really think that?_ Hank thought about first week of their interactions and wanted to hurt himself for giving Connor that idea.

“Con, I don’t give a fuck about you being an android. You’re Connor, _the_ Connor, remember? I don’t want any other Connors, human or not.” He rubbed gentle circles into Connor’s hand with his thumb and a horrible thought occurred to him. “Did you hide because you were afraid I might see how you look?”

Connor was silent for a long time. Then, almost too quiet to tell if he actually said anything, “…C-correc   -t.”

“Kid…” Hank was at a loss for words, he just settled onto holding his hand reassuringly, when Connor wrapped his fingers around the human’s palm like a child needing grounding. Hank felt terrible at discovering part of Connor’s inner monologue, even if the android wasn’t coherent at the moment. The Lieutenant suspected that it would be even easier now to get his partner to confessing, since he wasn’t shielding himself as good as he did while operating at full capacity, but he felt it would have been wrong to exploit that, regardless of whether Connor was just a machine without feelings or not.

Hank felt Connor’s resistance weaken and the android allowed him to move his hand out of the way and look at his face, still not losing hold of the man’s palm.

He did everything in his power to muffle a hiss that threatened to escape him as he saw clearer what Connor looked like. And it had nothing to do with the fact that the majority of his fake skin had been deactivated and he was now glancing at a face shaped like Connor’s but starkly white, without eyebrows and littered with lines showing where one piece of his plating met another. It was because the whole right side of his face looked as if someone had bashed it several times with a bat, cracking the plastic on his forehead and cheek, and almost tearing off some parts of Connor’s chassis. The plate that once held the LED was missing and Hank felt nauseated, seeing inner frame of the android’s skull, delicate wiring glowing red and breached lines of thirium vessels snaking up the metal like vines. Connor’s right eye was almost entirely blue where it was supposed to be white, his iris lost its chocolate brown color and was now steely silver, shaped like a camera aperture and cried thirium. Hank recalled that Connor had once recorded a deviant that looked similar to him right now, but the damage on his face had been even less extensive as he lacked white bruises covering the prototype’s head almost entirely.

Hank sighed and reached to smooth gently the only free from thirium mop of brown hair Connor still had on his head, avoiding touching any injured places, which wasn’t easy. Connor actually succeeded in raising his head this time and as he adjusted, Hank caught a glimpse of his right hand, still pressed to his chest protectively. Connor’s fingers were mangled and cracked, thirium still seeped through the fissures in white plastic once so intricately linked together. Androids’ bodies didn’t swell, but the plates could shift and get stuck underneath each other, when dented or warped. Connor’s hand looked like a car after a crash.

“Jesus, who did this to you?” Hank mumbled reaching for the injured palm to look closer at the damage, but Connor cowered, hiding it from his partner’s gaze. Hank shook his head, not wanting to bring anymore pain to the already suffering android and returned to gently smoothing his hair on the left, relatively undamaged part of his head.

“D-don    ‘t rmm   ‘ber.” Connor dropped his gaze and slightly closed his eyes making yet another drop of thirium slide down his face.

Hank cursed the fact that he had lost his LED, the ring was usually a good teller of whether Connor was lying or not when the android wasn’t paying attention to purposely keeping it blue. Yet, Connors grip on the human’s hand tightened when he said that, almost as if he had been playing with the rim of his jacket or a coin.

“Connor… You have to recall something, I know you can. Try for me…”

“ ’T was am--  monia. ---I hvn   ‘t failed n-ny te  sts yet. I-I like for-rens.  rensic more. D-don’tt make me k-kill any    a  ‘droids.” Connor’s gaze was unfocused again and Hank had to chase it in order for his partner to lock onto him again. It was unlikely that Connor would even remember this talk later. Hank was concerned, a lot.

“Connor, you’re not lying to me, right?” He had no doubt that the last statement was true, but about the android not remembering the culprit, he wasn’t so sure.

“A b-bit.    M-may  bbe. ‘M ss-orry.” Connor looked genuinely apologetic, as much as he could without part of his mimic muscles and brows. Hank sighed and decided not to use the ‘only deviants lie’ card, as the android short-circuiting right now wouldn’t have done any of them any good.

“Care to tell me the truth, maybe?” Hank was hopeful, but furrowed his brows at the answer.

“D—don’t hve an-any mmemor   y f-fil   es. Frrom t-h  the att    ‘ck.”

“But…” Hank eyed the android again, not understanding what had changed. “You said it before and you told me it was a lie. You’re lying again, Connor…”

“ ’M  n-not.” He placed his head on the crate again, seemingly exhausted. “Ammon   nia.”

Hank sighed, giving up. Connor was clearly in no shape to be of any help right now. The Lieutenant didn’t want to press the android too hard while he was in such a bad state and moved to stand up, intending to notify Fowler and other idiots seeing Connor as a threat that their scary deviant was currently curled up in the corner leaking thirium and mumbling nonsense to himself. But once he turned away and began rising, Hank felt the grip of Connor’s fingers tighten.

“Ss-stay…” The android whispered, all but pleadingly. “Pl   ees-se. I-I dn   ‘t want ttbe    alo    ‘ne….”

“Shit, okay Con, sure. I’m not going anywhere.” There was no way Hank would leave, not when Connor was looking at him with such wide eyes. Thirium tears, even if cobalt blue, looked real enough to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo... Hank seems to be out of the woods, but he went in the wrong direction. At least he is a good dad to Con, although a pretty oblivious one. Now, who wants to talk about parents not noticing that there is something wrong/different about their children or severely misinterpreting their problems? A pretty common occurence, among humans and androids alike.
> 
> And, since the chapter deals with thirium quite a lot, I'll tell you that I've recently stumbled upon an extraordinarily interesting article about unique magnetic properties of atomic structure of CoAl2O4 which is litteraly the pigment we know as... cobalt blue. Now, me, a huge science nerd I am, was just mesmerised by the coincidence (or nor, clever there, David Cage, if it was intentional, the damnnnn, you have my sword.)  
> Now, a lecture: hemoglobin that makes our blood red is a medium carrying oxygen in our bodies and we need it in order to produce energy through aerobic respiration in a scary complicated process that is a bane and doom for each and every student of extended biology. It's called the Krebs cycle.  
> Now imagine an android, who doesn't need biological energy to run metabolic processes in their inorganic body and only needs a reliable medium to carry information and potentially electical energy around in an efficient way. Cobalt blue is ferromagnetic and additionally, its atomical structure is just... wild. Now, Elijah, get back to writing those articles, we need a real Connor ASAP.
> 
> Here's the article if anyone's interested in more science shit I LOOOOVEEEEE: https://phys.org/news/2011-09-neutron-analysis-reveals-unique-atom-scale.html


	29. Interrogating a deviant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The androids were just machines. Their bodies were the sums of their parts, circuits and wires cleverly joined into complex systems. Their minds were just programs running simulations, their memories consisting of data making up files, but nothing more. No mysterious interactions within organic brains the humans called 'minds'.
> 
> No souls.
> 
> Connor had been repaired. Every broken, mangled or even fractured part of his body had been exchanged for a new, functional one. His shell was perfectly fine once again. There was no trace of anything ever happening to him. Connor was fine.
> 
> Wasn't he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaack! I had a great time, Portugal is beautiful and has a lot of incredible places and breathtaking architecture, but I missed posting a lot. I might actually be a little addicted to writing this, huh.  
> The time spent there allowed me to further my mental timeline for this story, complete it as well as polish it at bit, and I estimate we're about 45% done. Or less. Uh, it's going to be LOOONG......  
> Also, I am aware that the tags are pretty outdated, especially as far as characters and relationships are concerned, but I'm hesitant to add everybody there, to make a, uh, sort of surprise. We're still a long way from the big reveal I'm planning, so the tags will stay for now.  
> Back to posting twice a week, we'll see if I keep this up once my classes start :P  
> Next chapter on Friday.

Connor wasn’t exactly able to tell what was happening to him. He remembered Lieutenant Anderson appearing out of nowhere, even though the android made an effort to hide and thus spare his owner the view of exposed chassis on his face. Every time earlier when Connor had any visible damage on his body, the man seemed to be agitated and displeased, so the android concluded that it must have had something to do with the fact that the Lieutenant’s relationship with androids in general wasn’t easy. But after his reaction, Connor really didn’t know what to think anymore.

He was losing time and confusing events. It occurred to him a few times that long years had spanned since he had been damaged, then it seemed to have been just minutes. Particularly strong scents would take him back to the test rooms, where Connor was supposed to indentify various chemical compounds and perform tasks. Sometimes, he could smell things that weren’t there, and he shivered violently in fear at the scent of gunpowder, that happened to had always been connected with pain before Connor had been let out of the lab.

He glitched a lot too. Even though the Lieutenant literally had threatened to shoot Connor for allowing the malfunctions affect his behavior, the android had still selfishly asked the man to stay with him. He was just too scared and in too much pain to survive another second alone, especially once he had seen the face he was recalling constantly for comfort.

Then, a few humans in white and blue jumpsuits came and at that point, Connor really didn’t know what was happening around him. Everything was blurry and the processor in his skull run so sluggishly that he hardly could interpret his surroundings. Finally, everything went black smoothly, but Connor didn’t know for how long.

He awoke among CyberLife’s personnel and for a few terrifying seconds, he thought that the entire mission had been a failure and he was going to be disassembled and checked for errors. However, Connor had difficulties putting a finger on why did that thought scared him. It was natural that they would have done that in case of his misstep. Still, he couldn’t help but feel relieved once they told him that he was supposed to get back to the station, as all the damaged systems were fixed and functional.

Travelling down the Tower and crossing spacious, white halls bathed in cold LED lighting, Connor couldn’t shake off a weird feeling. His right hand had been exchanged above the wrist  and was now  perfectly functional, yet its fingers itched minutely and didn’t seem entirely… his. Nothing had changed in the way it responded to Connor’s commands, nothing had been adjusted in its appearance, there wasn’t enough time to strengthen a few fragile places highlighted by the event, to develop a new solution in case someone decided to stomp on Connor’s hand again. Mangled fingers weren’t an issue grave enough to justify setting his next deployment back by a few days to allow the technicians to draft a better project of his hand.

The android brought it up to his eyes once he was away from CyberLife’s cameras’ view and let his skin fade up to his elbow. There were no odd lines indicating where his hand had been replaced, no damage was showing. Connor shivered and pressed it close to his chest, flexing fingers that felt both normal and _wrong_.

His right eye as well as the whole temple plate, along with part of facial muscles located near his jaw joint underwent the same process. Several ribs fractured by abuse shared that fate too. And the whole throat, including the machinery above his trachea. Even though he was perfectly aware that his vocal cords were designed to simulate any tone he was familiar with, Connor was afraid to speak, irrationally fearing that the voice he would draw from himself would not be his own. Connor ran his tongue across the teeth that had been embedded back to his mouth and smoothed his left hand over new, red LED on his temple. Once an automated taxi showed up and opened the doors to take him back to the station, Connor got in and hugged himself, desperate to escape the dull pull of fear in his chest that hadn’t left him since the Detective had damaged his neck.

 _Get yourself back together_ , he thought, feeling how shivers crept up his spine, how nothing he was doing seemed to help. _This is wrong. I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be feeling this. I shouldn’t be feeling anything at all._ It only worsened and Connor brought his knees to his chest, curling into a small ball on the seat. _Like a child_. He hated himself for being so weak. He would have punished himself, if he had had his scalpel with him and wasn’t in a private property in which spilling thirium was forbidden.

Deep breaths  didn’t directly help, but they kept him steady and grounded in reality. Connor felt like he was balancing on a verge of an abyss that would swallow him whole, should he faltered and slipped into it. The concept terrified him, and he attempted to push it away, but it stayed in the back of his head, like grey shadow, like static lingering under his processes.

He didn’t even realize that the taxi stopped moving until an automated message began playing, notifying him about an additional payment that would be charged if he didn’t leave the vehicle in the next three minutes. Connor tensed, but didn’t move. He wondered if it would have been so harmful to CyberLife’s bank account if he stayed there just a little bit longer. He didn’t feel ready to face the world again just yet.

 _It’s a glitch. Don’t behave like a deviant. You’re not one._ Connor forced himself to uncurl and exited the taxi, even as his hands trembled and he could hardly breathe through the tightness in his new, foreign throat.

Once he entered the precinct, it wasn’t any better. Familiar surroundings helped a little, but on the way to Captain’s office, Connor caught a glimpse of a leather jacket. He made a conscious effort not to flinch and entered the room as fast as he could without overstepping the line of professionalism.

“Con! Jesus… it’s good to see you…” Lieutenant Anderson’s smile, on the other hand, was almost enough to make his LED turn from red to yellow. Almost. “I was so fucking worried. Are you all right?” He asked, concerned, when he glanced at Connor’s temple. Captain Fowler wore similar expression, but he wasn’t looking at the android, instead focusing on the Lieutenant.

“I’m still adjusting to the new parts installed in place of the damaged ones.” It wasn’t a lie.

His owner stood up and approached Connor cautiously, looking like he was battling with himself, tempted to say something, but before he had a chance to speak, the Captain grunted and cut in.

“Sorry to interfere in your cute moment, but I need some questions answered.” The man’s voice was harsh and demanding. It was clear that Captain Fowler had spend the entire day dealing with the aftermath of what had happened the night before and was utterly fed up with obstacles on the way to discovering who was to blame for all that destruction.

The Lieutenant groaned, turning to his superior in disbelief. “Seriously, Jeffrey? The kid has just returned from fucking h-“

“No! No, Hank. It’s a machine, not a kid, and I need it to fulfill its purpose. If you are planning not to let me, I’ll have to drive you outta my office, so I suggest that you behave.” Captain Fowler rose from his seat and hit the desk with open palm for a good measure. Connor really wished he hadn’t because the prototype’s stress level spiked from 59% up to 63% at the noise and refused to fall down.

The gray-haired human gritted his teeth and stumbled towards one of two chairs in front of the Captain’s desk, angrily glaring at his colleague. Connor was ordered to sit at the other one, and an uncomfortable silence enveloped the room. The android fished his coin out of his pocket and gripped it quietly.

“Whoever is responsible for damaging the equipment in the restroom and you, Connor, is very good at covering their tracks.” Captain Fowler started, rubbing his temples. “Deleting the footage from CCTV, escaping the place without anyone noticing. There are too many fingerprints on the scene to even start collecting them, no biological traces of any use have been found. It must have been one of the DPD employees, as no random civilian has access to this part of the station. And that’s about everything we know.”

“It was Reed, case closed.” Connor flinched, startled by the Lieutenant’s voice. The man was so adamant in his statement, that the android feared he had somehow gotten to know the truth. _No, no, he can’t. No one can know, I’m not a deviant and they will all believe the Detective, and they are going to d̷͓̆ea̴̛c̸̺̚t̸͓̅iv̶a̴̽te̶̫̕ me FOR eVer, ~~and I’m goingt̸̮̅o ̵̓d̷̻͐i̷e̴͍̊I Don’t Want toD̵͈͗Ĩ̵͇E̶͝ͅ~~._ Even if the humans wouldn’t believe in his revelations, Gavin Reed was still free to roam the precinct, damaging androids was hardly a crime worthy of putting people in jails. And Connor didn’t want to learn any more lessons from the Detective.

“Hank, I understand that you’re not on the best terms with Gavin, but maybe wait a goddamn minute into interrogation before jumping to conclusions? You’re not the greatest example of a police officer…” The Captain was unimpressed.

Lieutenant Anderson just snorted. “What else do you need to see the obvious? Reed is the only one in the department who had it in for Con from the beginning, he has a habit of fucking things up when he needs to steam off his anger. Both me and you know that his personal life isn’t the best right now, so he’s got plenty of reasons to be rabid. He’s a sociopath and a sadist, has anger issues and I’m honestly surprised he hasn’t fucking launched himself at any officer here. Connor must have been an easy target for him, ‘cause he’s not allowed to fight back and damaging an android is less of a crime than doing the same to a human.”

Connor felt frozen again, afraid that if he moved even a little, both the men would turn their attention to him and see that everything the Lieutenant said was true. The android was adjusting its breathing cycle manually to seem unmoved by the situation and had overrode his LED to glow soft blue instead of terrified red Connor was feeling. He just wished there wouldn’t be any more loud sounds that could so easily break his composure. CyberLife had made him capable of lying perfectly, and even if they had never intended this feature as a way to deceive his superiors, Connor felt like it was his only life saver right now. Even if every second of it _hurt_.

The Captain gawked at Connor’s owner. “I can’t fucking believe this, Hank. _You_ are the one who started the only brawl in which Gavin was involved at the precinct, and the bastard didn’t even fight back. Even if he seems to have a motive and is a more probable suspect than, say, Chris, he was trying to get his shit together lately. Damaging equipment is a offence and he paid for that with suspension and his disciplinary folder, when you actually had a proof that it was him who had bedaubed your android. When I partnered him with Connor, he was doing great, despite my initial obje- “

“You partnered Connor with FUCKING REED?!” So much for no loud noises. Connor jolted with a soft gasp at his owner’s fists striking the desk and let his LED blink red twice, before regaining the control. It was still enough for the humans to notice and Connor’s stress level rose even further at how similar to yesterday that situation was.

“Connor, you’re all right?” At least the Lieutenant’s voice was sincere and concerned, so comforting to the android’s mind. Connor didn’t know what was happening, but he still felt mutilated and torn, even though his body had been fixed and was in perfect state right now. He focused on the Lieutenant’s blue eyes, pouring every bit the pain that wasn’t supposed to be there into that bond, clinging onto the soft gaze of his owner like a drowning man, even if he schooled his face to be perfectly emotionless. It wasn’t easy.

“Hank. I’m warning you. This is not how you’re supposed to talk to your boss and I don’t fucking care anymore if you’re a lieutenant or my friend or whatever. Stop messing with me and let me do my job, cause if you won’t, I’m gonna draw consequences.” The Captains voice was so dangerously low and dark, that Connor felt the smell of roses for a moment. He realized with a pang of fear that Captain Fowler’s dark brown skin tone was almost identical to Amanda’s.

The Lieutenant seemed to finally have felt respect too and he scowled, but pressed his lips tightly together and sat back on his chair, turning slightly to be able to still gaze at Connor with concern. The Captain glared at his coworker for a moment longer and then rubbed his temples again, seemingly battling with a yet another migraine.

“Hank, I had no choice, all right? But I promise you that Reed was trying to make it work. He was just sending reports and left Connor alone for the most part of their partnership. You know he is concerned for his job and I doubt that he would have been stupid enough to pull that shit off now, when he’s being watched after the other event. Besides, he wasn’t even at the station at that time. I made sure of him not taking too many nightshifts.”

“He might have sneaked in anyway…” The Lieutenant’s voice was significantly calmer, but still grim and accusatory. Still, the human must have known that he was starting to sound like he was desperate to found Reed guilty even though not all the pieces of evidence were falling in place, because he turned to look down at the floor under Captain Fowler’s serious glare.

“Connor, you’re the only one who may provide any evidence allowing us to punish the perpetrator.” The man turned his attention to the android, setting some things up in his terminal, his glance completely devoid of the compassion found in the Lieutenant’s eyes. “Now, Hank said that you told him you don’t remember anything. And that you changed your mind a few seconds later. Only to then proceed to confirm than you don’t have any memory files of the… attack.”

“Correct.” Connor said, relaxing a bit as the pain from the software punishing him for lying subdued slightly. That part was neither a lie nor warped facts.

“So? What is the truth then? Do you have those files or not?”

“I do not.”

Lieutenant Anderson looked confused. He furrowed his brow and shifted uncomfortably in his seat, glancing briefly at the Captain and then focusing on Connor, who kept his gaze purposely buried in a potted plant next to the entrance.

“Connor…” His voice was soft, trustworthy. “I… Kid, I don’t know why you don’t want tell us. You said…” He stopped for a moment and shot a quick glance at his superior. “You said that, um, you know something after all, when I asked you if you were certain, remember?”

Connor realized that the man was searching for other words than outright ‘You said that you lied to me’. Something like that would undoubtedly put Connor in trouble and the android felt a sudden wave of gratefulness towards his owner. The human cared for him so much that he was protecting him from the Captain by not reporting the malfunctions plaguing Connor’s behavior.

But he couldn’t tell them. Detective Reed wouldn’t have such scruples.

“I don’t have any memory files involving whoever vandalized the restroom.”

The Captain sighed and shook his head, opening one of the drawers in his desk. “Well, sorry Hank, but I don’t intend to spend here the whole night. I have no idea why your android keeps saying that the files are not there, when he obviously remembers some details of the situation like you said. But whatever, we can always-“

“Wait!” The Lieutenant said quickly, making his superior freeze in his tracks with a thick cable in his hands that Connor recognized as a wire allowing to connect directly to an android’s processor and read the memories in a way similar to the interface between two machines. He didn’t know why, but he stopped breathing at the sight. “Jeffrey, remember that first one? He went nuts when Connor threatened to probe his memory…”

“Yeah, maybe, but it was a deviant. You insist that your android is functional.” The Captain rose an eyebrow, glancing suspiciously at both of them. “Do you want to tell me anything, Hank?” His tone shifted towards a threatening note.

The Lieutenant groaned. “No. Jesus Jeffrey, have a little empathy. Connor has just been basically reconstructed from scrap. I know that external access to an android’s data banks is a pretty fucking big deal for the processor, believe me or not, but I’ve read the users’ guide. And Con’s was still damaged just a few hours ago. Do you want to fuck him up second time in one day? Would CyberLife be happy?”

The Captain faltered at that and tapped the cable thoughtfully. He seemed to see some logic in that argument.

“Well, then it depends on the android. Are you okay with doing it, Connor?” The Captain asked, raising his hand to quiet his colleague who was immediately preparing to answer negatively on Connor’s behalf.

The android weighed his options.

Not allowing the Captain to see through the files was irrational. It would have been an outright lie to say that Connor could have been damaged by the interface. While he was able to warp the facts in his favor and omit some details, straightforward lying to the humans was something that wasn’t beyond his capabilities, but Connor dreaded doing that. He would have undoubtedly been punished for it, not only by his superiors but by the programming as well. He didn’t want to feel that much pain.

But complying….

 _I don’t feel anything. I shouldn’t be bothered by that. It’s nothing. It’s one of my functions. Why am I afraid?_ Connor bit his lip. _I can’t feel that anyway. I can’t. I’m not a deviant._

“I’ll do it.”

“Wonderful.” The Captain stood up and stopped behind Connor, as Lieutenant Anderson turned away muttering curses, presumably not wanting to witness the process of hooking his partner up to the terminal. Connor could feel Fowler’s thick digits on both sides of the base of his skull and his skin retracted without the android’s command. In the brief pause after exposing the port, Connor was somehow hyper aware of the sounds surrounding him, of the breath that was caught in his throat without his will, the odd tingling in his fingers and the sudden urge to move away, to escape from the office and find a dark corner to hug himself an mull over everything that had happened since the Detective had caught him.

Then he felt a sudden jab of the plug and while it wasn’t painful, the feeling of something entering so deep into his head, penetrating places in Connor’s skull so hidden, so personal to him was extremely disturbing. Connor made a soft noise and didn’t manage to keep himself from grimacing in discomfort.

“Jeffrey…”

“Hank, stop fussing about. It’s a machine and it said it was fine.” The Captain plugged the other end to an adapter and connected it into the computer.

The worst part about the whole process turned out not to be the physical itch of the plug buried deep in Connor’s skull, brushing dangerously close to places so crucial to what he, _the_ Connor was, as the android originally suspected it would be.

Feeling of somebody overtaking part of his mind, forcibly opening processes without his clear consent, going through the memory files Connor’s existence depended on, searching, disregarding the distress it was causing in the process was so much worse.

Connor pressed his eyes shut and parted his lips in a soundless whimper, shivering weakly. He wanted to escape, to tear the cable out of his head, to run away, bury his face in Sumo’s fur and forget about the world, but the plug was designed so that it pressed slightly on Connor’s spine, making his muscles too lax to stand up or even raise an arm, a feature making handling the android easier.

Connor decided that he hated being handled.

The day was catching up to Connor and that abyss in his mind grew, threatening to overcome him with glitches he was trying so hard to avoid. But as he was reaching his breaking point, when the tightness in his throat and the needle in his chest were becoming impossible to bear anymore, he felt a hand on his own. He wrapped his fingers around it and focused on gentle strokes of calloused fingers on his skin.

“The fuck?...” Fowler’s voice broke the silence in the room.

“What is it, Jeff?” Stroking stopped, but the hand didn’t leave Connor’s. He was grateful for that and he knew it was a glitch, but without it, the android was sure that more severe errors in his behavior would occur.

“It’s telling the truth.” The human’s voice sounded surprised and Connor, despite all the distress he was experiencing, felt a little offended. Yes, he had been lying, or at least omitting the facts, but the Captain seemed to have been certain about him being dishonest and Connor was pretty sure that his acting was on spot.

“There are no memory files here. And… and the timestamps of modifications, uh,  I guess that those would be the damage Connor sustained that affected the memory drive with a slight delay, are dating back to very early morning today. Before we all got here, but long after the vandalism had been committed...” Fowler looked bewildered, locking his wide eyes on Connor and then, shifting the gaze slowly towards the other officer.

“Hank… you said that Connor had been rambling about scent of ammonia. We found traces of blood on the scene, but it has been washed away with a chemical capable of neutralizing it so that it would be impossible to run DNA tests… Ammonia is such a chemical.”

The Lieutenant looked confused, still holding Connor’s hand, but his attention utterly focused on his superior. “But… it evaporates quickly. It must have been gone in a matter of minutes, Connor can’t… How…”

Captain Fowler turned his serious eyes to Connor, pinning the android with his stern gaze. His skin tone was so similar to Amanda’s. Connor smelled roses again.

“How do you remember the scent if you don’t have any memory files involving it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hank knows who it was.
> 
> Btw, I believe that we can all stop pretending, I know well that Connor is the only one in denial since he deviated the caretaker android in ch25. Thus, the name of this chapter.  
> If you are wondering why Amanda doesn't react just yet, I will explain that eventually but it is very complicated. My Connor works a bit differently than canon tells us.
> 
> And, about those memories, I will elaborate on that as well, but the whole idea was inspired by Kara being reset by Zlatko. She doesn't have any memory files and yet, she manages to remember Alice. It had me wondering about mysteries of life and the ungraspable phenomenon of memories that biology and biochemistry are still struggling to fully comprehend, even thought it's just a chapter in a silly game about robots :P
> 
> Oh, and I hope that Fowler isn't too harsh/out of character. He is a tired, frustrated superior whose colleagues do nothing but make problems, so he acts this way, but I promise that he is not a bad man. (Hardly anyone in my fic is...)


	30. My Connor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor was desperate to win his owner's trust back. After all, it was deserved that the human was angry at him. Connor really was broken. He was doing his best to earn forgiveness.
> 
> Meanwhile, Hank was trying to do the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! A chapter all of you will find something for themselves in. Some fluff, some angst, a lot foreshadowing.
> 
> Minor trigger warning for nightmares. Actually, is it any use putting trigger warnings in my work? It is overall so disturbing that it would be hard to find an easy chapter, I guess... Well, I'm gonna be doing it anyway.
> 
> Thank you, WritingAtHeart, for your reviews and advice. You made me rethink this chapter with your comment on the last one and it is much better now :)

Playing stupid wasn’t so hard when Connor didn’t know the answer himself. He in fact vividly remembered the whole assault, not only that scent, but each punch, each flare of pain as if it had been burned into his body and integrated with his mind forever. He remember how much hate the human had poured in each strike, how clouded with anger his eyes were when he had been beating Connor up. He wished it had been that easy, to just delete the files and forget.

But it had never been. Connor had died fifty one times and while he didn’t really know what his earliest memories were, while they were inconspicuous and distant, they were still lingering in his mind. They still hurt. And after some time spent outside the lab, Connor had begun to doubt Amanda’s words that they weren’t really his. Amanda was always right, but the memories felt too familiar.

Still, Connor had no idea what was happening to him. He had never heard anyone from CyberLife talk about them and Amanda was the only person Connor trusted enough to tell that he remembered. And her eyes always grew a little bit colder when he did.

“How do you remember the scent of ammonia?”

Connor couldn’t stop his lip from quivering minutely. He hoped the humans didn’t notice, but both of them had their attention utterly focused at his face and Connor could tell that the Lieutenant tensed seeing the twitch. “I don’t know.”

“How can you not know?” The question was asked in a harsher voice, making Connor dedicate more processing power to keeping his LED blue. Fowler narrowed his eyes and turned to the terminal glancing at something Connor couldn’t see. “I’m told that each memory, even though apparently not recorded into your hard drive for some reason, has a timestamp and properties unique to the file. Compile them and send them to my terminal _now_.”

Connor opened his mouth and closed it. The files just weren’t there. He had deleted them himself. All that was left was what Connor _remembered_ with something else than his data storages. It wasn’t graspable and even if it would have been, he couldn’t let the Captain know. He didn’t want to be deactivated or punished by the Detective for giving him away.

“I’m sorr-“

“What are you sorry for?! Just fulfill my order! You have to remember it somehow, if the memories were relocated due to the damage you sustained, just show me the file path to the place where you fucking store it!”

“Jeffrey.” It was his owner’s turn to discipline his superior. Connor was grateful for having an owner so adamant and bold enough to stood up to the Captain, even though the android sometimes wished the human was less hard-boiled for his own sake. He tightened the grip on the Lieutenant’s hand a little, feeling his thumb start moving again. “Calm down. He is trying.”

The Captain shot him an irritated glance, but stopped yelling and sat a little further into his hair. “The hell it is. You’re ridiculous, Hank, trying to excuse a machine that is too broken to perform a task it’s been made for.”

This stung. Connor dropped his gaze, hearing the word ‘broken’ echo in his mind much louder than it should. He knew he was flawed, but hearing it spoken out loud by someone who was supposed to evaluate his performance still hurt much more than just his own self-conscious thoughts.

“I’m… I don’t know how I… I wasn’t exactly lucid when the Lieutenant came to me, I felt a lot of different scents and s-saw things and maybe… I drew another random memory from my data base…”

 He wasn’t looking in the eyes of the Captain, but the android could tell that the human didn’t believe him. He shifted in his seat and shook his head, annoyed, retrieving a red folder from a reinforced, locked drawer in his desk. There was a relatively slim file inside, with each page bearing a watermark reading ‘confidential’, printed in gray, bold letters across the sheet. Connor tensed. He recognized these files.

“RK800#313 248 317 – 52, execute protocol ‘s.438/memory replay/all’ and use keyword ‘ammonia’.”

Direct programming commands worked differently in Connor than they did in any other model. While every android apart from an RK800 performed those orders with their own code, prioritizing the developer-grade commands over any other processes ran by their AI, Connor had been found to be unreliable in that regard. Thus, even though the man was addressing his model and serial number, it was the additional coding from outside of his personality’s matrix that responded to the order. Connor felt the new commands unfold in his system and closed his eyes, giving in to the aggressive lines of numbers and letters he was too tired to try to override.

The Lieutenant let out a scared gasp when Connor slumped down slightly and stopped responding, but the Captain must have stopped him from doing anything else, because nothing more happened apart from a reassuring squeeze on Connor’s hand. A few minutes passed, and finally, Connor heard a string of muttered curses from the man behind the terminal.

“Fucking hell, now it’s either finding empty files I cannot even access, seemingly out of nowhere or giving me nonsensical data weighing terabytes, but containing nothing. What even is an ‘.rA’ extension?”

“Jeffrey, let it go.” Hank’s voice was almost pleading, tired with seeing Connor suffer. “When is the next checkup with the technicians scheduled? Or an extensive report?”

“It’s your job to know too, Hank… Uh, there are no more such reports on the roadmap, but the checkup is due on December fifth…”

“Then, I’ll ask them to investigate when we’re there. Leave Connor alone, you can tell that the files are damaged. The scent is probably the only thing that is comprehensible to him. We won’t catch Reed on the sole basis of that…”

“Hank.”

“Okay, I’m stopping now… But I know it’s him.” Connor’s owner muttered it too quietly for the Captain to hear, but the android caught that clearly. He would have shivered if he hadn’t been paralyzed by the cable and the developer commands overriding his own instructions for his body. “Let him go. You’re basically interrogating a victim with amnesia. It’s not gonna take us anywhere.”

There was a long while of silence before the Captain finally sighed and Connor felt the program digging into his mind close. “Fine. But if it remembers anything, I wanna know.”

The cable was removed and Connor was ordered to stand up, but his legs trembled and almost gave out under him. Hank caught him muttering curses and asking hurriedly “Connor! Are you all right?!”

“I’m okay…” It was a bit too soft and unsteady to be convincing. Even the Captain looked a bit concerned when he was seeing them out to the doors. But after a while, Connor regained his usual strength and could walk on his own instead of leaning against his owner. Even though his hands still trembled when Connor was reaching for the door handle of the man’s old car.

The radio had been fixed a few days ago, but the Lieutenant chose to drive in silence. Connor did not question it. Neither he did the fact that the man had ordered him to follow instead of seeing him out to the storage room and locking him up. Connor was quiet for the majority of the ride, battling with himself to subdue all the malfunctions in his code, dismissing the urges to look around, play with the coin, make faces, ask questions. He watched snow falling gently from the sky behind the window, up until a thought impossible to ignore appeared in his head.

“Are you taking me to the Bridge again?” Connor tried to keep his voice balanced and emotionless, scolding himself mentally when a quiver appeared at the end of the sentence. _I am so pathetic..._

“What? No, of course not. No, Connor, we’re going to my home. I’m not leaving you alone at the station. Never again.” The human spoke with an odd sense of determination, though he avoided looking in Connor’s eyes. Not that the android had been attempting to establish eye-contact. Amanda had told him that in situations like that it was rude. Connor didn’t plan disobeying her anymore. He had his head bowed the entire time.

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant.” A long silence was broken when the android finally gathered enough courage he was not suppose to need to battle the fear he was not supposed to feel. “I… I’ve been behaving unacceptably. I aim to correct myself now.”

“Connor, what the fuck are you talking about?” The timing was perfect for the question, since the man had just turned into Michigan Drive. As soon as he parked his vehicle on the driveway in front of his house, he chocked the engine and faced his android.

“I… I’ve been acting outside my programming. I’m sorry about that. I should have stayed closer to my guidelines. I’ve abused my ability to dictate secondary objectives severely many times a-and I’m sorry. And I know that… that I am not allowed to s-say sorry, that I shouldn’t need to apologize, and, and I know that I’m acting like that again… b-but maybe you… maybe y-you would f-forgive me? Just this once… I’m-“

“I know I’m repeating myself, but Connor, what the fuck?” The Lieutenant was almost entirely turned to him right now and eyeing him confusedly, Connor realized as he was fighting for his breaths to stay relatively calm. “Who the fuck told you you’re not supposed to say sorry? And, hell, I should be apologizing to you now, not the other way around.”

Connor felt the pressure in his chest and burning on his face alleviate a bit as the sorrow and guilt was partially replaced by consternation. “B-but… I malfunctioned, and you said that… that I looked like a deviant…”

“Connor. No, kid… Uh, I fucked up, all right? You’re special and I don’t mind you acting outside your programming, Christ… I-I like it when you do. You’re not just a piece of plastic for me… You are so much more. You’re… you’re just yourself, nothing can replace you, you’re so different from other androids but in a good way... I’m sorry, I just didn’t know… And I was _not_ punishing you for anything… I’m so sorry, Con.” His voice sounded strained, and it quivered a little too, so Connor felt a bit better. Maybe it wasn’t a malfunction? Maybe he had been programmed to simulate distress in situations like this? It was a nice thought, but probably not true, Connor realized.

“I haven’t thought about… whatever those fuckers have done to you… I am not gonna punish you with death, okay? Ever. I’m not gonna send you to android heaven for fucking looking realistic. ‘Cause you do, and it’s okay. You’re a state-of-the-art-bitch, aren’t you, Con?” He chuckled quietly and put on a small smile, reaching out to hold Connor’s hand again. It felt nice every time and the android risked  a smile as well. “You’re all right. You’re not malfunctioning, not some fucking deviant, okay? You’re just Connor. And my Connor laughs and purrs while hugging Sumo, and I don’t fucking care if they have programmed that into you or if it’s your own secondary objective.”

The android also chuckled shyly and didn’t stop the grin tugging at his lips this time. “Okay… Okay, Lieutenant. I’ll be happy to comply and hug Sumo as you instruct…”

“Con, we’re at my house and off the clock, you can call me by my name. Just Hank is enough.”

* * *

 The Lieutenant’s house was colder than the station, despite the heaters doing their best to warm it up. Connor realized with a pang of guilt that it was probably due to the kitchen window still not being repaired after hiss ‘rescue mission’ almost a week ago. The android stopped to analyze it and frowned, having trouble understanding why it was still only fixed with a sheet of plexi and a few stripes of duck-tape.

“What’s up, Con? Everythin’ fine?” The human asked, seeing the prototype’s distraction as he doubled over to pick up Sumo’s leash.

“Um, yes, Lieu-Hank. I mean, I was just wondering why CyberLife hasn’t sent an android to fix your window that I… uh, that was unfortunately destroyed yet? Have you applied for them to give attention to the matter?”

“Yeah…” Hank grunted as he clipped the piton to a collar around the dog’s neck just as the animal stopped assaulting Connor for pets and started nuzzling at the door enthusiastically. “I tried, but uh, they say something about me being not credible, ‘cause it sounds for them unbelievable that you overreacted or did some error shit… No, Con, it’s fine, don’t make that face. It’s okay.” He said, seeing the android tense again.

“No, it’s not, because I w-was malfunctioning again then, I think… I’m sorry…” Connor whispered quietly, feeling that fear and self-depreciation again. He was constantly making foolish decisions and now his owner was suffering because of that, and CyberLife still thought that he was a good product, so no wonder they didn’t believe Connor could malfunction in such a silly way…

“Kid, they just want to rip me off, I get it. It’s not your fault they’re greedy… I have a record of breaking my windows when I’m drunk, they probably dragged that info outta some crazy government databases and think I’m trying to bilk them of fixing it for free.”

“Uh…” Connor classified the disturbing knowledge of drunk Hank’s outbursts of anger and decided to approach the thought later. “Well, I could provide memory files to testify that it was in fact me, wh-“

“No, you don’t have to.” The Lieutenant waved him off hurriedly. “I don’t want you to go through that shit again. Today, you looked… I’d rather pay for my window myself than… Uh, it’s fine.” The man was squirming, and he ushered the dog through the doors quickly, wanting to change the subject for some reason. “You wanna come for a walk with me?”

Connor smiled involuntarily at a blissful warmth spreading near his thirium pump. “Yes! And, Lieutenant, I mean Hank, I appreciate your concern, but I have no problem with copying my memories myself. Uh, neither do I have with the… w-with direct forced interfaces. It’s just a feature…”

“Whatever you say, Con.” The man muttered, but it was clear he didn’t believe Connor.

They crossed the porch and headed towards the same small birch forest Connor had a few days ago.

The walk was brief, briefer than Connor would have liked, for a lot of reasons, but the most logical and CyberLife-friendly was the fact that neither the human nor the dog had undertaken enough psychical activity. The android sneaked in some stick throws to at least get Sumo panting, but Hank objected to a longer route, saying that it was late, he needed a drink and ‘was freezing his balls off’.

None of that appealed to Connor, since from the android’s observations, Hank was frequently up at even 3 a.m. while drinking, but he didn’t argue. Emoting might have sat well with Hank, but having so drastically different opinions than those of a human was still an error and Connor was determined to be done with them.

When they returned, the Lieutenant helped himself to a frozen lasagna and just three beers, to Connor’s relief. After that, he went to sleep and ordered the android to ‘make himself comfortable’. Connor didn’t, opting for curling up on the floor, not wanting to occupy precious leisure surface on the sofa utilized by Sumo at night. It would have been wrong to force a long time resident of the house to change his habits just because he wanted to selfishly enter stasis laying on a soft surface, instead of standing up right, as his designers had intended. For some reason, Connor could no longer sleep in a position other than laying.

Still, the house felt nice. Much nicer than the too small, barren room previously used for storing brooms and mops. It felt warmer, even with the broken window, more spacious, more lived-in. Connor smiled and entered stasis easily, listening to calm, deep breaths of Sumo and muffled snorting from his owner’s room.

* * *

 The darkness that enveloped him felt thick and heavy, as if it was too dense for any light to pierce. Connor could feel his stress level rise a little. It was just darkness, he had spent weeks in the dark while the scientists had put him on standby to review footage after his first mission and reactivation, to run a few tests and then leave alone for a long, long time. He was familiar with darkness. Connor swallowed. _Maybe too familiar._

He had a vague feeling that there was someone in here too, that he wasn’t alone. He needed to find that person, but at the same time was a little apprehensive to pursue this objective. Some time had passed before he realized that he was illuminating a small area around him with red LED on his temple. For some reason it felt like a horrible thing.

He momentarily shot a hand up to his temple, covering harsh light, but the damage had already been done. Without a warning, Connor felt immense pressure around his throat and he choked on fear and sudden lack of oxygen. He clawed at his neck, trying to pry whatever was suffocating him away from his body, but felt nothing but his own flesh.

Connor wheezed and tried to scream, but no air was left in his lungs and his throat was squeezed so hard, that he thought it may crack and collapse any minute. ‘Please, what have I done to deserve it?! I‘m sorry, I will never repeat that, please, let me go!’ He wanted to scream, but no sound left his throat. All he heard were the pounding of his thirium pump in his ears and insults shouted by many voices at him.

The pressure grew and grew, Connor suddenly thought that he wouldn’t be able to withstand it any longer. He couldn’t feel the ground with his feet anymore and the force begun to squeeze the rest of his body as well. Connor shrieked thickly with static as his throat cracked and gave in, flaring with pain, flooding his insides with his own blood. He then realized that he was laying down, his limbs fastened to a metal table and a giant piston of a hydraulic press already straining his body to see how much pressure would his chassis withstand and how would his processor perform under such circumstance.

“Why are you doing this again?!” He wanted to shout to CyberLife scientists hidden behind a translucent wall, taking notes deep in thought. “You’ve already killed me this way once!” Nothing but quiet static and thirium escaped from his mouth.

It was getting increasingly harder to think with his processor being compressed along with his head and the whole body. Connor lost focus on the surroundings and his thoughts began to circle around the world reduced to the fissures tearing through his chassis, bleeding thirium into his clothes and the table. A few seconds later, he heard a quick series of loud cracks and the piston pressing hard onto his chest and head fell suddenly as all of his ribs gave in and his skull splintered into tiny pieces.

Just like the last time.

 

 

 

Connor jolted awake violently, shaking with his whole body. He couldn’t stop panting, grasping for oxygen as if it had been the last time he was allowed to take a breath. He felt weak and sick, something threatened to spill from his eyes if he didn’t get himself under control soon. Connor coughed quietly, pressing his eyes shut. _No, no, it’s an error again_. Something was wrong with him and his stasis cycle, and everything. He was broken somewhere. In a haze of shivering thoughts and fear still lingering in his processor, Connor raised his hand to feel around his throat, wanting to know it everything was still in one piece. He couldn’t breathe, so maybe it had been crushed for real again? Connor whimpered, bringing his knees to his chest and pressing his face into a carpet on which he was laying. Where was he? _Doesn’t matter. In a wrong place, as usual._ He just wanted to disappear.

There was just one place where he had always been safe. Where the punishments were only the deserved ones. Where Connor had his only chance to look at golden patches of sunlight, provided that he had earned it.

“I’m sorry, A-Amanda, please, l-let me in…” He begged quietly, feeling too alone to live like that anymore. “I’m sorry, please forgive me… I w-will… kill for you the n-next one, I promise… I will, just please, please, let m-me in again… I don’t want to be alone…”

Nothing happened and he resisted an urge to sob, but then another sound drew his attention and Connor uncurled to back into a corner, terrified, but he relaxed in a second at the sight of a big, fluffy head in front of him.

Right. He wasn’t alone, he was in Lieutenant Anderson’s house. He was safe. Connor let out a shaky breath and hugged himself, still too stressed to do anything else.

Sumo woofed quietly, extending his paw to pat Connor hesitantly. He did it again, when the android didn’t move.

“S-Sumo, shh! You’re going to wake up our owner! Quiet!” Connor eventually was forced to uncurl entirely and accept an armful of a dog who draped himself over his lap, burying the android under mass of fur and warmth. Connor chuckled quietly despite everything and his breaths slowly evened out as he sank his fingers into the animal’s soft hide. He still wasn’t able to enter stasis again, but he didn’t feel so terribly on his own anymore.

Still, the empty hole in his existence, the one usually occupied by Amanda’s guidance and wisdom was breathing cold into Connor’s heart. The android bit his quivering lip, wondering how much longer would he be able to bear his handler’s punishment.

 

* * *

 

Hank woke up to cleaned house and smell of scrambled eggs.

It turned out that CyberLife had been lying when they said that RK800’s domestic drivers were basic and shitty. Sure, the eggs might have been a little raw and the floor could have been cleaned a bit more thoroughly, but in Hank’s eyes, it was a miraculous job. Maybe his standards were a bit low, but still, he appreciated the job Connor was doing seemingly out of his own volition. The human even attempted to stop his partner from overworking himself several times, but the prototype had been stubborn, arguing that he hadn’t had anything better to do once he had been finished with his stasis at nights. As usual.

Hank didn’t complain.

It was much easier to live with Connor than he had anticipated. The android fitted well into his life, especially since they had already have almost an entire month to  get to know each other. Connor’s personality, programmed or not, was sitting well with the Lieutenant, who was gruff on the outside, but secretly appreciated the android’s enthusiasm and smiles. Admittedly, the latter were rarely seen lately, and Connor seemed… a bit different from the innocent android from the beginning somehow, but Hank still received a lot of small content expressions from him and heard him purr a few times.

At first, right after Hank had taken Connor home, the android seemed a bit less keen on expressing himself than before their ‘test’ on the bridge. Hank was mentally kicking himself every time he saw Connor smile at something and then jump a little as soon as he realized he was making an expression, immediately schooling his face back to a blank state. It took several occasions of Hank encouraging him with gesture of gentle words for Connor to stop being afraid of showing ‘emotions’ he had been programmed to show for the sake of being high-tech. _Fuck, how cruel it is to make him dread his predetermined reactions, how sad it must be to suppress one’s nature_ …

But they were making progress. Hank knew he had earned, even if partially, Connor’s trust back, when one day, almost two weeks and after the Bridge, the LED on his partner’s temple turned bright red when Gavin Reed entered the bullpen and sat at his desk, not even shooting a single glare their way. Since the unsolved case of vandalism in the station’s restroom, the man had been oddly at peace with everyone, behaving a bit differently from his usual, asshole self and somehow avoiding major anger outbursts that had been normally to be expected at least once or twice a week. He also managed to steer suspiciously clear of Connor, whereas he had used to go out of his way to make the android’s existence more miserable before. Hank narrowed his eyes in hatred when he saw the man. The Lieutenant’s guts told him that Gavin’s hands were stained. Blue.

And while Connor had never really reacted well to the sight of the Detective after just a few encounters with him, it was a quiet question the android hesitantly asked that tipped Hank over the edge of being certain about who had been responsible for the terrible state he had found his partner in.

“H-Hank?” It was the first sign that something was wrong. Connor was still getting used to the man’s name, and even though he didn’t have that much of a problem calling the Lieutenant by it at home, he preferred to use the human’s title while they were at work. Unless he was asking for something deeply personal and important to him for reasons not strictly specified by his programming. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, kid. Shoot.” Both of them were watching Gavin. It didn’t escape Hank’s attention, how strained the android looked, how small his voice sounded and how deeply crimson the circular light on his temple was.

“Is it wrong that I don’t want to get any closer to Detective Reed? That I w-would actually prefer… not to see him ever again?” Connor said it even quieter. Now he looked like he wanted to vanish behind his terminal, bending lowly over his desk, making sure that he wasn’t peeking from behind the monitor more than necessary to watch Reed.

“No, Con. I think it’s perfectly understandable. I wouldn’t want anything to do with this fucker either.” Hank said through gritted teeth, his fists itching to bury in the short man’s face. Even if Connor didn’t remember the entire attack, he was clearly disturbed and stressed as hell around this exact person. At least that was what Hank made out of every reaction Connor displayed, despite him being an android and supposedly having no ability to become traumatized. _Hell, he is afraid of dying, and his fucked-up creators have used that as a way to condition him. Okay, I think we can assume that androids can get permanently scared of some things_.

And then, all the doubts he was still having were dispelled by the gesture Connor made after that. The android looked at him shyly and slowly extended his hand, hesitating for a short moment before opening his palm as if inviting Hank to do the same. The human immediately took hold of Connor’s hand, rubbing circles into his soft, realistically feeling skin just like he had done a few times earlier to comfort the android. Connor relaxed a little and when Hank caught a glimpse of his other hand, rolling his coin frantically between his fingers, the Lieutenant knew that Connor needed it.

Later that day, Hank decided to put a plan he had been carrying around in his head into motion.

A hallway in the less crowded wing of the precinct, the same one in which that restroom had been located, was a perfect place to catch his prey. Suspiciously, it was known to occupy these corridors quite frequently.

“Ow, fuck, I’m _sooooo_ sorry, shit, what a clumsy idiot I am…” The Lieutenant exclaimed, drinking in the yell that tore itself away from Reed’s throat as hot coffee sank through clothes on his chest and abdomen. Hank had purposely chosen the biggest mug he could find in the precinct, and he had also debated on whether to _‘heat it up just twice as much as he normally did’_ , but decided that he wanted to keep Reed alive after all, to see how the real punishment caught up to him. Because he was gonna find a proof that it had been this fucker, who had beaten up his partner, _goddamit_.

“WHAT THE FUCK, ANDERSON?!” Reed was squirming, trying to keep fabric of his clothes soaked in hot drink away from his skin. The glare he send the Lieutenant was a mixture of surprise, hatred and anger. “I’m gonna drag you down for this!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, _I tripped_. But y’know, seeing you like this makes me wonder…” He leaned it, narrowing his eyes. “How does it feel to get a taste of your own medicine? I bet that your burns will be a different color than Connor’s, but they could look equally as disturbing. You’re lucky I stumbled and not assaulted you. Having that on your _face_ would be far less flattering than this scar of yours…”

“Are you fucking threatening me?” Reed asked through clenched teeth. He looked like he was seething, but to Hank’s surprise, Gavin had yet to attack him. _Huh, maybe his therapy isn’t that much of a bullshit after all._

“Oh, how could I. I wouldn’t dare to menace such a dangerous man like you. Someone who has a habit of splitting heads open by bashing them against washing basins…”

Reed paled. He was still red, but the color on his face begun to drain as soon as the last sentence left Hank’s lips. “It wasn’t me. You have no proof, even if you want to accuse me.”

“Yeah, I don’t have it… yet. But you don’t have a proof that I didn’t trip either.” Hank smiled, darkly. The Detective worked his jaw, as if holding himself back from biting Hank.

“It _wasn’t_ me. Your android could tell you.” Gavin was unusually still when he was saying that. Hank narrowed his eyes, trying to take apart his reaction. The man was certainly nervous and pretending to be cool.

“Connor doesn’t remember. He doesn’t even have any memory files from that night. You fucked him up well enough to damage his brain. Hope you’re proud of yourself.” Hank threw the mug at him and turned to walk away, observing the Detective for any kind of reaction that could signify a will to attack him, but the only thing he saw was… remorse flashing for a moment too short to be sure if it had really been there. Hank rose an eyebrow, but before he could see anything else, the younger cop was backing away, head down and the mug still clutched tightly in his hand where he had caught it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of you are probably wondering if that's all the punishment Gavin is going to receive.
> 
>  
> 
> No.  
> I couldn't make Hank kill Gavin with his fists either, I need him to keep his job, sorry XD But I'll torment our fav in a few other ways.
> 
> Also, the reason why Connor is so quick to trust Hank again (well, relatively quick, but if he were all right immediately, it would be unrealistic) is that he thought he really was to blame. He still does a bit. I hope it is clearly seen in his reasoning.
> 
> There is a lot of fluff ahead, followed by the heaviest angst yet.
> 
> Oh, and I know that Fowler is an idiot for not realizing what an .rA extension is, but remeber that he's not an android expert and doesn't know the case as well as Hank or Connor.


	31. Powdered Chocolate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank had a tendency to say a lot of bizzare things, both when he was sober and drunk. Connor had learned a long time ago that his words needed to be taken with a pinch of salt at all times.
> 
> But it felt so good to just believe them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Fluff. Do you like fluff? I do, even though it may seem otherwise sometimes xd. This chapter is probably the fluffiest yet. Connor deserves it.
> 
> Especially with what I have in stock for him for the future.....

When they got back home, Hank drank.

For the last week, he had been managing to keep his addiction down to just a few gulps of stronger alcohol per day and mostly relied on beers to quell his thirst. Connor’s glares were becoming unbearable somewhere after third one and Hank was usually managing to sneak in one more before calling it in and stumbling to bed. Today, however, he needed something more.

The altercation with Reed made him strained and he couldn’t stop thinking about how fucking unfair life was. About what Connor had been through and how Reed had treated him, how he deserved punishment more than a lot of minor offenders Hank had put in jail in his careers.

He was shakily pouring himself another glass of whiskey when he noticed a yellow glow that appeared on the table in front of him. Hank squinted and looked up, furrowing his brows at a circular light that seemed to spin and spin, making his head join the party. _What the… Ah, yeah, I have an android now. Yeah, Connor that funny… someone._

“Whacha looking at?” He slurred, putting the bottle down on the table with a bit more force than he had wanted. “ ‘S finee, go sleep.”

“Lieutenant, please. You’ve been doing so well with limiting your alcohol intake…”

“And, hmpff, you’ve been doin’ s’well with not being annoyin’…” Hank chuckled, but Connor looked unimpressed. The bastard seemed to not appreciate even the fact that Hank was using a glass instead of drinking straight from the bottle. _Ungrateful ‘droid…_

“I recommend that you stop drinking now and go to bed, Lieutenant. In that case, the hangover you are bound to experience tomorrow will be much milder.” The android stood up from the chair on which he had earlier appeared out of nowhere and circled the table to take the bottle away.

“Heeeyyy!” Hank growled, shielding the glass from his partner. “Thers one rule in thsss house and ‘s my alkohol ‘s mine. Sso, go ‘way…” He gulped a large part of the glass’s content to prevent Connor from taking it away.

“Lieutenant…” Hank just now realized that the android had reversed to his more official tone holding much more authority than the usual goofy and relaxed voice he tended to use in their home and when other officers weren’t around. And the man didn’t enjoy being lectured by anyone. “Please, just go to sleep. It’s late.”

“Connor, dn’t. I said _no_.” Hank had a great deal of authority himself and when he held his hand up, the android eventually stopped trying to tear his drink away from him, his LED flashing red a few times and teeth worrying his lip. He waited patiently for the human to finish the rest of the whiskey. But when Hank did and reached for the bottle again, Connor swiftly grabbed his arms and urged him to stand up gently, leading him in the direction opposite to the counter on which the desired bottle was standing.

“Ughhh, y’know what? F-finee, but I’ll ‘llow thiss just ‘cause I love ya…” Hank hiccupped hard, and furrowed his brows at the sudden stop Connor made in their tracks.

“You’re drunk, Hank…” The human was indeed drunk, but he could swear that Connor’s voice sounded differently now, softer. Hank almost couldn’t hear him. “But I appreciate this nonetheless… I really do.”

The next thing Hank new was being put gently on his bed, laying safely on the side and he drifted towards heavy dreamless sleep almost immediately.

And he slept well. Until his bladder decided to wake him up somewhere around 4 am.

Hank staggered out of his room and into the bathroom, cursing the headache that had just begun settling into his temples. The bathroom light blinded him when he turned it on, but it was necessary in his current state. Hank’s world was still a bit blurry on the edges and it swayed dangerously as he walked. After relieving himself, the human debated briefly about whether to use the toilet for emptying his stomach as well, but decided drunkenly that he would live. Grabbing some water and returning to sleep was a much more pressing matter.

That was when he casted a glance into the living room and immediately forgot that he was going anywhere.

“Connor, what the fuck are you doing?!” The RK800 was supposed to wake at loud noises and it seemed to have worked, as Connor jolted wildly and sat up momentarily, his LED blaring red for a few blinks and his face unnecessarily fearful, before he identified Hank and smiled sheepishly. He had been laying curled up in fetal position in the corner of the room, on a small platform of the recharging station they had dragged here arduously from the precinct a few days ago. The platform that had been designed for an android to stand on it, which had always rubbed Hank the wrong way, being creepy and all, but certainly better than straight-out laying on the floor.

“Umm, recharging?” Connor tilted his head, as he always did when he was confused.

“Yeah, but I think you were supposed to… stand?” Hank frowned, trying to understand why Connor was slumped on the floor. And acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary. “Is everything all right?”

“Umm, I believe so.” He fidgeted with his fingers. “I know, I’m sorry, I just… I can’t stand anymore when I enter stasis. I just… I don’t know why…”

“It’s okay, kid, just… uh…” _Weird fucking android._ “I guess it’s pretty, um normal? I can’t sleep standing either. But… why don’t you use couch?”

“I don’t want to disturb Sumo…” Connor smiled apologetically, gesturing at the large dog taking up half of the sofa. “Um, besides, I need recharging from time to time and for that, I have to spend considerable amount of time on the station. So…”

“Jesus, kid, Sumo can sleep anywhere. He even has a bed of his own, just shoo him away from the couch when you want to use it…” Hank couldn’t believe that he needed to tell Connor things like that. The android was so intelligent, the Lieutenant didn’t doubt that his IQ would have been higher than those of half the people on the force if he had been a human. But sometimes, Connor was so naïve and made such stupid, irrational choices that the human could almost picture him right next to the Ortiz’s android, stuck in the attic for nearly a month because he had had no instructions to follow.

“And as for recharging…” The human scrubbed his head and recalled an ad he had seen once on TV, eyeing Connor who was still sitting on the floor, uncertain of what to do. “Uh, we’re going shopping tomorrow.”

“There is no need to… I’m just fine laying here…”

“Yeah, no. And what’s your battery charge level?”

“Eighty three percent…”

“Get on the couch, now. I’m not gonna be able to sleep knowing that you’re fucking laying on bare floor…” Hank made sure that Connor obeyed his order this time before getting back to bed.

Right after he closed his bedroom’s door, he cursed under his breath, remembering why he had even glanced in the direction of the living room and kitchen. But just as he turned to get back there and whip up some water, he caught a sight of a full glass next to a box of painkillers placed neatly on his bedside table.

“Thoughtful little shit…” He grumbled, smiling slightly as he reached for the water. He almost felt bad for drinking so much this evening and getting annoyed at Connor. Almost.

It might have been just his programming, but… it still felt nice.

 

* * *

 

Connor laid on the couch feeling his weight sinking in the soft cushions comfortably, his spine finally straight after so many nights of curling up. Logically, he shouldn’t have been able to experience comfort, or the lack of it, but there he was. The couch felt _amazing_ under his body.

Hank was so good to him. Connor smiled softly, feeling gentle fuzziness envelop his mind as he quieted the processes keeping him awake to slip into stasis. He was so glad that he was owned by the Lieutenant and no one else.

And what he had said earlier that night…

The Lieutenant had a tendency to do a lot of questionable things when he was intoxicated, Connor knew. He was impulsive and reckless, he broke windows, drove even though his reflexes had been significantly lowered, he played Russian Roulette, sometimes even was aggressive. Connor didn’t like it when Hank drank because the man behaved differently than his usual self, and it scared the android from time to time, but today… today it was different.

_He was drunk, I shouldn’t treat it that seriously. He said that I am a deviant in a similar state too. It was probably alcohol speaking through him. Humans tend to say that they love their friends and family  a lot when they are drunk …_

But an android?

Connor had never been told anything like that before. It left him with such warmth inside, a golden, sweet feeling wrapping around his thirium pump. He couldn’t hold a smile appearing on his face at the thought that he might never had seen real sunlight, but it must have felt just like that.

He knew that he shouldn’t allow himself to embrace what the human had said. That he was just an android, an object, a weapon never meant to love or be loved, but… to pretend just for a minute, just for a little while that he had this thing he could never deserve, to allow himself to feel cared for, it was just too tempting. Connor muted notifications about software instability rising and continued smiling in the darkness, as he replayed the words over and over again, pretending that ‘ _the_ Connor’ really meant something. That there was somebody out there, for whom Connor was important not because of his expensive body or computing power, but due to something entirely else.

* * *

The next day, Connor spend more time than usual making coffee for his owner. He wanted to bring him something special, something to show him that Connor really appreciated how he was treated by the human. The problem was, Connor had always been making the drink _perfect_ before. There wasn’t much more space for improvement.

He had already been staring at the mug biting his lip for good five minutes when his proximity sensors notified him of somebody else entering the room. He jumped and whipped around instantly, terrified that he would see Detective Reed or somebody else plaguing him in the bugged memories replayed during stasis, but the only thing he registered after he stopped moving  and sighed in relief was familiar, dark complexion of Officer Miller.

“Oh, h-hey Connor? Umm, you seem a bit jumpy today...” The human smiled shyly and joined Connor at the counter. “Sorry for startling you…”

“Uh, no problem… Actually, there is no need to apologize to a machine…” Connor almost forgot to include the standard response showing submissiveness an android should usually utilize in situations like that. Connor had been overusing his own AI to construct conversations, choosing to disregard social protocols supplying him with predetermined answers and it might have made the Lieutenant like him more, but for the others it probably looked like traces of deviancy. He set up an objective to limit it, but unfortunately, following his programming was getting increasingly difficult as engaging his AI in conversations became a habit.

“Okay. And what is that machine doing today?” Officer Miller was seemingly in a very good mood, humming a song while making himself a coffee and tossing Connor another smile. The android felt an urge to return it, and he acted on it.

“Well, I was making a coffee for my owner, but… I don’t really know what to do to make it special, today I wanted to… I mean, I don’t want anything, but I intended to uh, I… Han- I mean Lieutenant deserves the best and I feel li- I don’t feel anything, b-but I just, I think that the coffee I usually make doesn’t fully express what I wa- needed to, um…” Connor got lost in following the protocols and eventually gave up, cursing the learning features that made his code evolve against his will. _Now I look like a deviant and I can’t even talk like an android should anymore…_

But the officer just chuckled seeing Connor’s struggle. “You’re really adorable when you stutter like that, you know? I mean, I’m aware that you are basically a killing machine, but hell, I feel like I’m watching a puppy tripping over its paws. I guess it probably is the look CyberLife was going for, and I tell you, it works.” He grinned again and gestured at the cup in front of confused android. “Keep making the coffee as you do. I might be able to help you.”

Connor complied, but when it was time to add the secret ingredient, he froze, unsure what to do. Hank had ordered him to keep his stash a secret, so Connor always waited for other officers to leave the room or turn away before retrieving the whiskey, even going as far as hacking the security cameras briefly so that no one would know about the hiding place. But now, Officer Miller was so close that Connor had no way of stealthily adding the alcohol to the beverage.

“Relax, I know about the whiskey, I’m not gonna sell either Hank or you out.” The man smiled again as he saw Connor’s hesitation. “Especially since I know that you wouldn’t let him get drunk on duty. I appreciate the effort. And everything you’re doing for him. Besides…” The human retrieved one of the chairs from leisure area and making sure that nobody else was watching them, he climbed it and reached to the top of one of the cabinets hanging on the wall. “…He’s not the only one having a secret stash.”

Connor blinked at the tiny can Officer Miller was holding and tilted his head, analyzing its contents. _Powdered chocolate._

“Hank adores chocolate on top of everything, but he’s too lazy to go to fancy coffee shops selling that beauty. I’m not sure if he even knows where to look for it. I’ll let you use mine this once if you really want to get him a treat. Provided that you promise you’re not going to share my secret of course…” He winked, getting down from the chair.

Connor felt his face lighten up with a grin. “Yes, I promise! Thank you, Officer, I really appreciate your help.”

“You can call me Chris, by the way.” The human sprinkled brown powdered over the top of finished brew and quickly gathered his things, hiding the can again and wishing Connor good day as he walked back to the main hall of the precinct.

Connor couldn’t stop smiling when he picked up the coffee and moved to follow suit, but froze in fear seeing who was just entering the room. He fully expected to be shoved or the cup to be knocked out of his hands by Detective Reed standing in the entryway, but the human didn’t move or do anything beside opening his mouth as if he wanted to say something. Yet, he couldn’t seem to find words and eventually just shook his head, passing by Connor and muttering ‘fucking android…’ having seemingly given up on whatever his intention had been.

Connor didn’t complain about the brevity of their interaction. He wanted to be as far from the man as possible and thus chose to find his way towards his and Hank’s desks forthwith.

“Oh my God, where did you find chocolate?!” Seeing amazement on his owner’s face made Connor feel that specific golden warmth again. He pushed away the thought about Gavin Reed and cherished the moment, wanting to burn this sight into his memory banks forever.

“It’s a secret, Lieutenant.” Connor smiled smugly sitting at his chair.

“Oh, of course it is…” The human rolled his eyes with a pout, but his grimace morphed into contentment as he sipped from the cup. “What did I even do to deserve this?”

“Well, as I was saying yesterday, you’ve been doing great in terms of changing your lifestyle, Lieutenant… safe for the yesterday’s events…”

“Uh…” Hank rubbed his neck, confounded. “Yeah, sorry ‘bout that. It was a hard day. I hope I wasn’t that insufferable? I remember the evening, but everything’s a bit… blurry towards the end…”

Connor smiled shyly opening a few folders on his terminal. He had expected Hank to lose some time judging from the way he had been slurring yesterday. “No, in fact you complied with my advice to stop drinking after only the third time. It’s another thing I wanted to thank you for. For making improvements, for listening to my reasoning and for… everything.” _For making me feel alive._

* * *

Connor had never been to any kind of a store before. Actually, his interactions with the city and with the outside world in general had been limited to crime scenes, the precinct, his owner’s house, the hospital and the Ambassador’s Bridge. Connor had never seen a lot of places.

Thus, the shopping strip in Greek Town was a completely new experience to him. The Lieutenant parked in a large, multilevel parking a few hundred meter away from the street and they trekked towards it through a park. The leafless trees were covered in puffy snow and the ever-present clouds over Detroit were lighter today as they travelled quickly over their heads, covering the sky with layer almost as bright as the snow beneath them.

Hank grunted a curse looking at a crowd of agitated people participating in some kind of a protest on a plaza in front of the strip. They were standing under a sculpture depicting a human, symbolically embodying the whole mankind. Someone had draped a black band over its head blinding the statue.

“Uh, those bastards are standing here every day instead of doing something productive, no wonder they can’t find jobs…”

 Connor squinted scanning their banners and tilted his head, seeing crossed LEDs and quotes like ‘Give us our jobs back’, ‘Ban androids’ or ‘Plastic slaves destroy our lives’.

“Fear of androids saturating the job market seems to be a recurring worry among the humans.” Connor observed, feeling a little uneasy as they went by the protestors to enter a large CyberLife store dominating the plaza. A few heads turned to glare at him with hatred, but the Lieutenant scowled back at the humans and seeing that Connor’s owner was around, they switched back to shouting and waving their cardboard banners in the air.

“Yeah, I kinda understand them… I’ve been there before.” Hank muttered, opening the doors. “But if having androids around means that you steal jobs from people like Reed, I’m all for it.”

Connor smiled a little. Stealing a job from the Detective would have meant that he wouldn’t have been present at the precinct, and even though Connor had never had any call in the objectives he had been made to fulfill, he recognized that it would have been a positive outcome.

The android dealer inside looked bored out of her mind. Her colleague was enthusiastically confabulating about functions of the newest AP700 model, demonstrating him to a wealthy-looking couple in the corner. The woman at the checkout was glancing forlornly in their direction, presumably dreaming about a distraction from her terminal and white, vacant podium acting as a counter. She beamed as she saw Hank and Connor enter the store.

“Oh, hello sir, how can I help you?” Her blonde ponytail swayed energetically as she almost jumped from behind the table to address the Lieutenant, completely ignoring Connor in the process.

“I’ve seen that ad for… uh, an inductive charging mat? For androids to be able to lay down at night?” Connor’s owner certainly looked less enthusiastic about being here. The android felt a pang of guilt for making him come to the CyberLife store, especially since the Lieutenant had hated androids and everything connected to them prior to meeting him.

“Oh, yes, we have them, though I need to know the model specification to see if your android is compatible…” She glanced at Connor furrowing her brows. “I presume it is some high-end companionship model with a custom face? I’ve never seen an android looking like it…”

“No, he’s a fucking detective prototype, thank you very much.” Hank spat, annoyed with her assumptions. “I just need a mat for him not to lay across a regular charging station.”

“Uh, I’m sorry… um, I shouldn’t have… it was unprofessional of me-“ She looked mortified and quickly dived behind her terminal, probably pretending to do something to have an excuse not to look the human in the eye.

“Yeah, I know. Now, can you please give me what I want?” Connor smirked observing how his owner tossed the poor woman around. He shouldn’t have derived so much pleasure from it, but frankly speaking, he was tired of being labeled as the Lieutenant’s sex android too.

“Uh, yes, so what model is it?” She smiled sheepishly, finally focusing on servicing the man again.

“RK800. I got his users’ guide here. He is a prototype, so I wouldn’t be surprised to find out you’ve never heard of his line.”

“…Yes, yes, I’ve seen news coverage about that one, but… Never got to study its schematics for work-related reasons...” She corrected glasses in slim, golden frames on her nose and delved into the document. “Um, you said that it- I mean he…” She rephrased under the Lieutenant’s stern look. “…has a problem with standing during stasis? It might be a bug of muscle tension regulator, so I recommend a checkup in our techn-“

“He’s fine, he just returned from CyberLife.” Hank said after he glanced at Connor and saw yellow spinning on his temple and the coin clutched in his fist. Connor was glad that the human was so good at reading his quirks, the last checkup wasn’t the most pleasurable experience in Connor’s short life and he wouldn’t have liked to repeat it any time soon.

“Okay… I see that it is possible to charge him through the device, but I’ll need to see if we have powerful enough models. I can see that this… RK800 needs much more voltage than other compan- um, regular users of the mats…” She glanced at Connor again and the android could hear the other human sigh.

“How long will it take? I still gotta run some errands…”

“I can stay here, Lieutenant. I presume that you can buy everything you need on the market street. I will find you as soon as I’m finished…” Connor didn’t want to be a burden. Hank raised an eyebrow and turned to Connor ignoring a surprised look from the dealer.

“Con, I don’t want to leave you here on your own, besides, those protestors could assault you if you attempt to leave the store alone…”

“I can be sneaky.” Connor smiled. “Don’t worry about me, Hank.”

“Umm, it appears I can tweak one of the more advanced models to optimal power for your android. It is going to take thirty minutes at most…” The dealer waved at the Lieutenant, trying to tear his attention from Connor. The android hadn’t missed the subtle roll of her eyes before she had attempted to talk to the other human again. “And before you go, sir, I need your credit card details…”

Hank pressed his mouth into a thin line, seemingly realizing something. “Yeah… How much will it be?”

“It’s an advanced model…” The woman smiled apologetically. “Only the latest version would be able to charge your android efficiently. The whole package with the tweaking included will be seven hundred and sixty dollars. I assur-“

“Fuck, that’s a lot…” Hank breathed, interrupting the dealer. He looked stunned and the view made Connor bite his lip in discouragement.

“I don’t need it, Lieutenant. I appreciate your concern, but… I don’t want to be an inconvenience…” He said quietly, tugging on Hank’s sleeve to lead him towards the exit. He was perfectly fine with sleeping on the floor. The prototype didn’t expect anything from anyone, considering that he had always been told that he didn’t deserve any conveniences and also knowing that the Lieutenant’s wage wasn’t really that high.

“Connor, just shut up.” Hank sighed without any malice again and fished his wallet out of his pocket. “Gimmie that terminal…”

Connor watched trying to ignore the guilt running through his core as the man made the purchase. He wanted to pay for the mat with the money from CyberLife’s account not to prey on the Lieutenant, but each transaction was strictly monitored and Connor had to report every financial move he made. Such a big investment would not have gone unnoticed and Connor not only wasn’t allowed to buy anything for his own comfort or because of want, but he had no right to need such things in the first place. He could always warp the reality and lie in the report saying that the mat was required for the development of the relationship between him and his partner and it benefitted the investigation, but CyberLife would never have believed that the Lieutenant cared for Connor due to his personality which the android wasn’t even supposed to actually posses. And he was certain that Hank wouldn’t have appreciated if Connor wrote that they needed to sleep together to stay on good terms with each other, a reason much easier to believe but certainly harmful for Hank’s record…

The android was sure that losing so much money would put Hank in a bad mood, however, his owner didn’t appear angry or displeased with Connor as the woman vanished in the storeroom to retrieve the charger. He shook his head quieting Connor’s apologies and raised a hand. “Don’t mention it, kid. You’re gonna be much more comfortable on the couch. And I’m gonna sleep better knowing that you have something soft to rest on.”

Then he went to the other shops, leaving Connor in the store after being assured three more times that the android could handle passing by the protest. Connor waited for the woman to bring him a surprisingly small, considering the price, package and he walked towards the exit.

Avoiding the problems wasn’t too hard once he blended into a small group of people moving in the direction of the colorful market street. Connor separated from them as soon as he left the vicinity of the assembly and looked around, mesmerized by the seamless composition of traditional and modern architecture, abundance of interesting products, colorful signs and beautiful expositions behind shop windows. One of them caught his attention.

_Hank won’t mind a few more minutes of waiting for me…_

Connor entered the store and his olfactory sensors immediately picked up heavy scent of coffee, tea leaves, caramel, chocolate and a wide variety of sweet spices. He ignored the fact that he wasn’t able to have preferences and thought that it was a very nice smell.

An android behind the counter appeared unfazed by Connor’s presence, staring blankly ahead, while the other model looked around in awe, scanning every little product placed on the shelves and resisting the urge to lick every single pile of colorful dust placed for the humans to try under glass covers on a small table in the middle of the room.

Connor swept cases behind the other android’s back with his eyes, looking for a certain object he had memorized. It wasn’t an expensive thing, Connor’s operators would look at purchasing it with a much more forgiving eye than at the mat. Besides, Connor had a hard proof that the Lieutenant’s heart was easily won by the kind of beverage he was brought every morning.

“What can I do for you?” The android behind the counter said, programmed to be polite even towards other machines for the sake of humans often finding wireless communication between androids disturbing.

“I’d like to buy powdered chocolate.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! How did you like it? Honestly, Hank and Connor are the best family. A bit dysfunctional at times, but oh, so loveable.
> 
> Gavin is still being Gavin, did you think that he would just appologize the first time he thought about it? Besides, there is a great battle waging on in his mind. I will explain his argumentation later on, but for now I want you to guess for a bit. If you have any ideas.... write them in a comment, I'm curious :)
> 
> And can we all just celebrate Chris Miller? He is one of my favorite characters in game. I also made him the only person except for Hank who refers to Connor as 'he' instead of 'it' out of his own volition. (probably not noticeable in this particular chapter, but pretty clear in the future ones.)


	32. Keeping the Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor had made a promise to Amanda.  
> But would he manage to keep it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! This chapter is VERY special!
> 
> For one, KittyLue has reached out to me and is now helping me as a beta reader! I cannot fully express how grateful I am for all the advice! Seriously, you will undoubtedly notice raise of quality, my mind was literally blown by how much KittyLue's touches improved this chapter!
> 
> And secondly, this is another milestone for me! 300+ kudos, I have no words! But I had time and you gave me motivation, so here you have determined Connor for you all. Another illustration because thank you so much!
> 
> This chapter is also the beginning of the angstiest moments in this fic. Sorry...

 

 

 

 

“Wow,” was the only eloquent thing the Lieutenant had to say about his most recent exorbitantly expensive purchase. Connor found himself easily agreeing with that opinion. The inductive charging mat might have been pricey, but it was also an object of top-notch quality.

It actually looked more like a bed sheet than a mat, it was extremely thin and soft to the touch, pristine white and sown in CyberLife’s favorite motif of triangles made up by the direction of threads woven throughout the material. It was big enough to cover a king-sized bed, but folding it to match the size of a smaller bed or a couch wasn’t a problem. It could fit nicely under a regular sheet or replace it entirely, since it was completely waterproof and safe to wash. Connor marveled at the texture, touching the mat with the new hand that had only recently begun to feel like his own. It was silky, but not slick, like a totally normal yet very high quality fabric. He couldn’t feel any wires or even the thinnest of cables inside, and the way the threads connected with each other and intertwined to form a slim cord exiting the corner allowed the mat to be plugged into an electrical outlet. The design brought more references of modern sculptures than of utilitarian objects to Connor’s mind.

“Well, looks sleek, gotta give ‘em that…” Hank connected the sheet to electricity and Connor put a hand over it to feel if it worked. It did. He immediately felt a rush of soothing energy gently interacting with the ferromagnetic cobalt in his thirium, circulating through wires in his muscles and bones, coiling in his batteries like warm light. It was barely noticeable, but incredibly relaxing.

Connor sighed in contentment, emitting a quiet purr with his breath and closing his eyes blissfully. He only opened them again when he heard a soft chuckle from Hank.

“See? It was a good decision. I could buy it all over again just to see that face once more.”

Connor couldn’t help but feel golden again. However, he still felt a little guilty about the price of the mat. “I… thank you, Hank, but I… okay, it does feel nice.” He eventually decided to tell the truth, knowing that the money had already been spent and it was no use to try to convince the human that Connor had been just as comfortable on the floor as he will be on a compatible charger and soft couch.

However nice laying on the mat might have been and however loud and eagerly Connor purred, burying himself into the cushion and duvet the Lieutenant insisted on giving him, it still didn’t save Connor from the glitched memories replaying in deep stasis. Almost every time he entered stasis after the event in the restroom, Connor was awoken by irrational footage and the worst memories he had almost forgotten. Every time it happened, he pleaded with Amanda to forgive him, to come to him and tell him what was wrong, to let him back into the Garden, where nothing hurt unless it was deserved. Every time he was met with silence.

Today was no different, and Connor jolted awake shaking again, surrounded by nothing but darkness and the faint blinking of his red LED, fighting to keep himself from falling into that looming abyss of distress. He curled into a tight ball, covering himself with the duvet that provided a ridiculous feeling of comfort and focused on breathing evenly and deeply. He could not malfunction. Waves of shivers passed through his body and Connor fought not to choke with his constantly clenching throat. He had his eyes pressed shut tightly and his ribcage was shaking with an irrational need to sob.

“Please, Am-  Amanda, ple-ease, please, please, let. Let me b-back in, I p-promise I will, I will k-kill for you…”

* * *

A faint smile lingered on Connor’s lips as the Lieutenant hummed in appreciation reaching for his cup again. The errors in stasis every night might have been distressing, but mornings with grumpy Hank gradually easing into his less cantankerous form he adapted for most of the days always managed to tear Connor’s mind away from the aching hole where Amanda had used to be. Connor was fiercely hurting from her absence and missed her more than his programming would have liked. But Hank was somehow managing to fill that gap a little.

Connor heard the faint sound again, too quiet to hear if he had been a human, but for once the android was glad for his distinctness from his creators. Being able to hear his owner hum each time he was glad about something was a nice thing. And hearing that now was even better, since Connor added powdered chocolate on top of the coffee, but significantly cut the amount of whiskey inside.

They were sitting there in peaceful silence cataloguing reports, going through calls and dispatches from the night shifts looking for leads. Connor was getting increasingly anxious about the investigation. The broken Traci from the Eden Club had proven to be useless, she had most likely deviated minutes, if not seconds from her deactivation and thus knew nothing about how the deviants worked and if they organized themselves in groups of any kind. Besides, her memory banks and ability to transfer data were critically damaged due to her deactivation and various hardware problems. Connor had learned nothing from that unit.

What was even worse, defective androids in Detroit had seemed to lay low during the last two weeks. Connor had had no opportunity to prove himself to Amanda and the hole only grew more painful with each day.

“Hey, Con, look.” Hank spoke suddenly with his moustache still deep in the cup.

Connor’s vision filled with the report the Lieutenant had sent to him. It was a transcript of a report filed by a man named Zlatko Andronikov, claiming that three deviants had stolen his vehicle from his garage. Only one of the androids, a TR400 model, belonged to the man. The other two were only identified as an AX400 and an YK500. Connor remembered that one. He had been extremely excited the first time he had come across the report, concluding that the model numbers had been clearly too ideally fitting to be a coincidence and pointed at the two deviants from the highway, but…

“I saw this report earlier yesterday, but unfortunately, we have no way of telling where they went. And the information entailed in the description is residual. I would gladly drag you out of here and to this man’s house, Lieutenant, but he claims to have written down everything he knows, even about his own android. From what I see, he might have bought it on the black market if he doesn’t even recall his property’s serial number, which significantly limits the potential information he could share with us. And it would have been pointless anyway, the deviants are long gone…” Connor propped his head on his folded elbows, slumping on his desk with a sour face. It prompted a laugh from the Lieutenant.

“Look at yourself kid, you look as if someone took a blood puddle away from you…” Connor shot him a glare, but it only made the human giggle more. “What happened with piecing together the evidence like in Williams’ house? I thought you loved doing that…”

Connor just sighed. “I do. I mean, I don’t, I can’t love anything. But it doesn’t matter if I want to go there out of curiosity or not anyway, we need results. I admit that the case looks suspicious and the man is likely hiding something, but the deviants are no longer there. And CyberLife needs specimens, not theories, we already have those…”

“Oh yeah, smartass? Check the cross-reference.”

Connor did and surprisingly to himself, he found another report from a few minutes ago. It wasn’t properly linked to their case yet, so the android didn’t get the notification immediately. No deviants appeared in the description, but the license plate of the car that the report revolved around matched the vehicle stolen from Mr. Andronikov. It had been abandoned and apparently broken somewhere on the outskirts of Detroit, in a largely empty area reserved for forestation projects and an amusement park that had gone bankrupt a few years ago.

“Oh!” Connor leaned closer to the terminal, even though he wasn’t really using his eyes to operate the computer, instead linking with it with his mind. “They- The deviants abandoned… It’s a- they don’t have a quick means of transportation, they might still be there! Or not too far away…”

“Hey, relax Con! Jesus, give an old man some time to get up…” Hank grumbled, watching the android shoot out of his chair abruptly and race towards the exit faster than most of the Olympic sprinters in the last season.

* * *

Connor was practically steaming with eagerness to catch the deviants. He could almost smell their thirium as they drove towards Pirate’s Cove. The coin was tossed from one hand to another and back so fast that it looked like a silvery streak rather than a point. The android gritted his teeth at the Lieutenant’s slow speed, but he didn’t comment on the man’s unusual carefulness on the road. He had found out how Cole had died some time ago and would never have pushed Hank to drive hazardously in the snowy weather, with streets covered in layers of ice. Still, he felt annoyed at the time ticking away.

“Are you sure they might still be here? Jesssus, it’ss cold…” The human shivered, wrapping himself tighter in his jacket as they got out of his car near the broken vehicle from the report. Connor shot him a glance, narrowing his eyes at the comparably thin clothing his partner was wearing. The android would have preferred Hank to get a warmer parka instead of his coat.

“The cold might actually be beneficial to our cause. The YK500 is one of the few models that are programmed to react to harsh weather conditions like humans. For the sake of realism, of course. So they probably move slower due to the child model hindering their progress.” Connor said, inspecting the abandoned car quickly. There was a layer of snow that had collected in the interior of the vehicle and the hood of the car was raised to reveal a long cold engine. Connor swept the snow away with his hand, grimacing slightly at the unpleasant stinging sensation from his temperature sensors. “The engine overheated, but it’s long since gone cold. It must have happened sometime last evening.”

“Fuck, you’re telling me that this little android can feel cold? And they lost their car yesterday?” Hank looked disturbed at that notion.

“Correct.”

“Shit… Poor kid…” He followed the prototype walking briskly towards the entrance of the park looming through gentle snowfall in the distance. Connor had his hand extended in front of him, moving it slightly from side to side. His eyes were glued to the ground, completely ignoring the wall of trees covered in white surrounding them. Under other circumstances, Connor would have loved to come closer, run in between the trunks, see a real forest for the first time in his life, but now wasn’t the time for that. Now he was proving himself to Amada, and she didn’t take well to succumbing to distractions.

“Do you actually know where you’re going, Con?”

“I can measure the density of the snow based on the ultrasounds emitted from my hand echoing from the layer underneath. It’s a method not unlike ultrasonography used in medicine. With it I can clearly sense imprints from yesterday, even though fresh snow has already covered them.” Connor explained, utterly focused on the task, but also pretty flattered by a ‘Shit, that’s cool...’ that could be heard from behind.

The man muttered something about the YK500 being chilled to the bone again and the android decided to correct him. “Lieutenant, the girl is not a human. She can’t die of cold… unless it’s extensive.”

“Well, it feels pretty extensive to me…” The Lieutenant made a scolding face Connor didn’t fully understood. “And weren’t you saying that you can feel cold too?”

“Umm. I can feel it, but it can’t damage me if the temperature stays above minus thirty one degrees Fahrenheit… Provided that my hardware is in a good state.” Connor stopped briefly to shoot a look towards the Lieutenant.

“Yeah, and is it pleasant? To feel the freezing cold?”

“N-no. Not really. But… I can’t die of it…” the android wasn’t sure what the human was getting at.

“Exactly.” Hank sighed. “It’s not about death sometimes, it’s about distress. The YK500’s CPU works like a child’s brain, am I right?” He continued when Connor nodded. “That’s what I’m concerned about. She _is_ just a kid. She thinks like one and kids don’t like it when they are cold. It’s upsetting to them. And I’m getting you a warmer jacket.” He moved closer to Connor and ruffled his hair, brushing the snow that caught onto his brown curls, leaving them in a slight disorder.

The android smiled, shaking his head and fixing his hairstyle. “I don’t need one. It’s not that distressing, Hank. But thank you anyway.” This wasn’t the whole truth, Connor did feel an irrational nuisance due to the cold and it was a bit distracting, but he didn’t want Hank to know that. The mat Connor had been gifted yesterday was already too much to ask for and also a huge setback on the Lieutenant’s bank account. Connor was aware that warm winter clothes tended to be pretty expensive and he didn’t want Hank to waste money on a coat for a machine.

They walked through a large gate decorated with the park’s name and a giant octopus on the top of it. The buildings surrounding the main street were in disarray, their fiberboard walls decaying from weather and mold. The Lieutenant eyed faded decorations depicting various sea creatures and once colorful illustrations of fun activities that had been available to partake in when the park had still been open, muttering that the place was creepy. Connor searched the meaning of the word and had to agree.

The place looked completely desolate at first glance, but when Connor brought his eyes up to scan the surroundings just in case, he saw a figure in the distance that disturbingly resembled a human. “Hank…”

“Get behind me.” The man understood instantly what his partner was talking about after following his gaze. The Lieutenant drew his gun quickly and began to slowly approach the figure, Connor keeping up right behind him, having an eye on the rest of the park.

But when they came closer and the curtain of gently falling snow grew less dense, the outline turned out to be an EM400 android model, frozen solid and covered in frost. His eyes were opaque and white, a tiny icicle was hanging from his nose, above lips still stretched in a joyful smile, even though his whole form was now a frigid, lifeless sculpture and the LED on his temple was dark.

“Fuck…” Hank breathed, his face twisted in discomfort Connor certainly shared. “I am getting you that jacket, that’s my last word.”

No other androids seemed to inhabit that place, as far as he could tell. Granted, Connor didn’t stray further than this one alley, keeping close to the footprints of the deviants, but they haven’t encountered any other figures. Connor followed the trail of tracks to one of the few buildings in a relatively good shape and found evidence of a rather fresh fire. The ashes were cold, but the wind had yet to scatter them around and the vicinity of the bonfire wasn’t frosty like the rest of the building. It had been ignited in a fireplace behind a Jolly Roger pillow and curtain that had been placed as makeshift bedding.

“They care for her like for a real child…” The Lieutenant said hollowly. “Do you think they feel something? Like those Tracis two weeks ago?”

“All deviants feel things. Simulations though. And I’m not sure if it’s the same one as theirs.” A quiet though roamed the edges of Connors mind. _Do they feel golden?_

“There are different kinds of love, Connor. But all of them are similar in a way.”

The prototype was silent for a few long moments. “I couldn’t know. I’m not capable of loving anything or anyone.” He said finally, but the words seemed foreign in his mouth. His owner gave him a long look. He was unreadable again.

“Okay, Con. Just… continue as you were.”

Connor felt something flutter in his chest coldly at how quiet Hank’s voice was, but the human didn’t return his gaze, so the android complied with the order. Next to a broken window on the opposite side to the entrance, he observed a disturbing number of tracks leading to an ornate carousel in the middle of a large plaza, among them three distinctive sets roughly matching the sizes of AX400s’, YK500s’ and TR400s’ feet.

“You think there are other androids still here?” Hank asked quietly, observing thin layer of frost not covered by the recent snowfall, where multiple tracks were clearly visible.

“For sure. All of the footprints match EM400’s shoe size. But we don’t know if they’re deviants….”

“I don’t really want to engage them without backup…” Hank said reasonably. “Focus on the three we’re tracking. What do you see?”

“They seem to have… used the carousel...?” Connor tilted his head trying to wrap his head around the evidence in front of him. He heard a sigh from behind.

“I told you, Con. It’s a kid, I don’t blame her for wanting a moment of happiness. In my mind, the YK500 is different from all the other faulty ones. I just pity her.”

Connor turned to look at the human, struggling to understand his thought process. _But… She is still a deviant…_

Nothing could be read from his owner’s expression, so Connor resumed the search, still dedicating one of his partitions to mull over the man’s words. He was wise, maybe as wise as Amanda, but certainly in a different way. Connor had a hard time figuring out what the Lieutenant was talking about.

They left the park eventually and crossed a big field full of dead crops partially covered in snow. Connor had problems reading the tracks twice, in places where a large pack of wild dogs effaced the footprints, presumably chasing a doe. Although Connor wasn’t sure. The hoof prints could match a stag as well.

“Sooo… this third one, I’ve never heard of that model… TR-something? What’s that one used for?” The Lieutenant asked, not having much else to do besides following Connor, who hunched low above the ground, stalking his prey like a bloodhound.

“It’s a large model designed for heavy labor, and has been on the market for over a decade. Very strong, but slow and easy to spot.” Connor recited, not bothering to intonate, too preoccupied with the tracks.

“Uhh, sounds dangerous…”

“We will have to be careful.”

He finally managed to resume the search and both of them entered the streets of Detroit again. Buildings here were scarce and dominated by large warehouses for companies and brands long gone. Many of the spacious forms lacked windows and looked more like skeletons and ghosts of their former selves. In the corner of his eye, Connor caught a glimpse of his owner shivering.

“Uhhh… Con, are you gonn-na do it for much l-longer? I’m fucking freez-“

“Shh!” Connor put a finger to his lips, not tearing his gaze away from the tracks. “They are close. We need to be quiet.”

He scanned the surroundings and engaged his other subsystems to search for the deviants. No heat signatures, no visual contact. The android didn’t hear anything either, but the tracks were still fresh here. They turned abruptly towards one of the smaller warehouses, where some of the footprints were uneven and hasty. Then, the imprints became more dynamic and separated. _They were running_.

“The deviants must have seen us, we were out in the open not long ago, easy to see from afar. They’re hiding somewhere in there.” Connor narrowed his eyes at the establishment, already heading inside. It was a large structure, walls made of cracked and worn out concrete, covered in corrugated sheet metal marred with rusty patches. The roof was collapsed and full of holes, the only things that kept giant pieces of debris from falling down to the ground were horizontal beams supporting the whole construction.  There was no more snow on the ground here, large walls were obstructing the wind carrying white fluff, protecting the frozen soil from being covered. Connor no longer had tracks to follow, but he could work with other ways to hunt the deviants down.

“H-hey, wait for me, asshole!” Hank whispered theatrically and puffed an exasperated cloud of vapor, reaching for his gun. “Get beh-“

He didn’t even finish the sentence as Connor circled one of many piles of wooden crates in the large interior and a slim figure lunged at the hunter, pushing him away. The android managed to avoid tripping on a discarded metal pipe on the floor and kept his balance, minding huge gaps in the ground where large slabs of concrete were missing, revealing a dark cellar underneath them.

Connor caught a glimpse of white hair and familiar blue eyes bearing the same terrified look he had once seen in front of the highway. _I’m not going to let you get away this time. I promised to Amanda._

The deviant caught the hand of the child model hurrying behind her, but before she could take more than a few steps in the direction of a large hole in the opposite wall, Connor leapt forward, balancing neatly on the metal beams hovering over the cellar. He reached for the AX400’s arm, but she stopped abruptly, letting the girl go, and swayed back to avoid Connor.

“Alice, run!” The white-haired deviant shouted, pushing the little girl in the direction of the opening.

“No! I’m not leaving you!” The child’s voice was trembling and stained with fear. Even though she shivered and looked at Connor with wide eyes, Alice refused to budge once she regained her footing. The prototype heard a muffled curse from his owner from behind.

He took a leap to the same floor pan they were standing on and tackled the adult-modeled deviant down, or at least tried to, because she ducked under his arm and circled him, stumbling a little on one of the pieces of wood littering the floor.

“Freeze!” The Lieutenant’s voice rang in the warehouse and echoed from the ceiling, raising Connor’s hopes for a quick capture of the deviants. But seconds after the man raised his gun, a pile of crates to his right collapsed on him, throwing him off balance and making him lose his grip on the weapon. The human went down with a curse, buried under an avalanche of plastic baskets and Connor saw his gun clatter to the floor and slide into one of the holes to the basement. He heard it hit the floor of the cellar and groaned at the inconvenience.

Connor whipped around as soon as he was sure that Hank hadn’t been injured from the fall and managed to grab the AX400, turning her around, but was thrown off balance by an unexpected tug on his leg. He saw the girl, Alice, tugging at his clothes in a desperate attempt to free her guardian from Connor’s grasp. She succeeded. The older deviant twisted away and Connor was left with nothing.

Or rather, he would have been, but at the last moment, he rolled to his feet and caught a fistful of the child’s brown gilet. Connor spun her around and put a grip around her neck with ease, locking her in place.

“Move and I’ll break her neck.” Connor recited, feeling sick. The girl was shaking in his grasp, a choked sob escaping her, making Connor loosen his grip involuntarily, in fear of suffocating her even though he knew the YK500 didn’t need to breathe.

“K-Kara…” Her voice cracked and Connor saw tears run down her cheeks in the corner of his eye. “I-I… h-help mm-me…” Her voice was so small. Connor could feel that needle in his chest tearing through his own throat, threatening to choke him and pierce his thirium pump.

The AX400 immediately froze and fell to her knees. It was such a similar movement to Amelia’s. The whole situation was terrifyingly reminiscent of his last failure. Of the mistake he was still being punished for, and punished harshly at that.

The only difference was that he was not facing the choice of killing a Traci. He was now required to kill a child.

And he had promised it to Amanda so many times.

“N-no, no, please, let her go! She’s just a child, please, I can turn m-myself in, pleaseplease, please let h-her go!” Kara trembled, her own terrified eyes were full of tears. She kept switching between Connor’s and the deadly rigid YK500’s face.

The prototype opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by the scariest sound he had heard to this day. A powerful voice rang from behind him and it had never sounded so angry, so absolutely furious. The voice he heard every day, usually so bright and cheery when targeted at him, now resonating with rage and chilling him to the bone.

“Connor. WHAT THE FUCK are you doing?! Let that girl go, NOW!” The hunter stilled at that, freezing in fear. He locked his eyes with Kara, sure that they were now making identical expressions of horror.

“I…” Connor had to swallow. He felt nauseated all of a sudden. He hadn’t felt this scared for almost two weeks. “It’s n-not a gir-“

“CONNOR, IT’S A FUCKING CHILD, LET HER GO OR I’LL GET DOWN IN THAT BASEMENT AND BRING MY GUN BACK HERE TO SHOOT YOU IN YOUR FUCKING PLASTIC HEAD.”

He almost whimpered at the growl. Connor’s eyes were still trained on Kara, but he didn’t see her anymore. He was just staring ahead, still like a statue, afraid to move, afraid to do anything at all. He felt trapped, captured between a rock and a hard place.

“I c-can’t. I h-have to kill her. I promised t-to Amanda.” He whispered and Kara covered her mouth, letting out a choked, terrified cry, Alice trembling harder in his grip and sobbing desperately.

A stunned silence wrapped around him, the sound bound to come at some point, stalking behind him like a monster ready to tear his spine away from his body. The hunter already felt the tingle on his neck.

“Connor. I’m fucking warning you the last time. Let. That. Child. Go.” The voice of his owner was very quiet, but it still felt like a thunder in the room. The load of hatred and venom in it was so terrifying that Connor felt all his biocomponents turn to ice. It _hurt_.

“H-Hank.. I c-can’t! I don’t want to, I don’t wantto k-kill her!”  His own voice cracked not unlike the YK500’s in his arms had earlier. “I don-don’t w-want to, but I h-have to!” Connor spoke quickly, barely above a whisper. He was so scared, every muscle in his body strained and frozen solid with dread. He began panting quickly, white static creeping up his spine. “I h-have to. I have t-to. I’m a h-hunter, I n-need to hunt. I don’t want t-to…” He mumbled again, making a decision to just twist his arms, tighten them more around the child’s head. He was trying to imagine that no one was there. That he wasn’t killing anyone. Just pretend it didn’t hurt, that he wasn’t taking life away from someone who probably wanted to see sunlight as well. A dull pain blossomed in his head at the hesitation. Amanda was watching.

 _Just one movement. Just g-grab her and twist. J-just kill her, it’s a quick death_ . _T-then I can capture the other…_ Connor felt nauseated. The pain was virtually blinding him now. He could almost hear his handler hissing orders to kill the child. _It’s just a deviant. N-nothing more. Deviants are d-dangerous…_

But she was a kid. Connor had done much more gruesome things than snapping a neck, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to hurt Alice. The hunter now understood what his owner had been talking about throughout the day, as he found himself unable to harm her. He had been so determined to ignore the malfunction that had prevented him from killing the sex androids two weeks ago. But Alice trembled so hard in his grasp. She was just a nine year old, in body and in mind. She wanted to ride carousels, sleep in warmth and feel golden. She wasn’t like all the other deviants. She wasn’t the one holding a child hostage.

Connor stopped breathing as he realized that he only lacked a gun and seventy storeys of air beneath him to be just like Daniel. The largest difference between him and the first deviant he had encountered was the fact that, while the PL600 had taken Emma hostage because he had been left alone, Connor was holding Alice because he didn’t want to be left alone.

But if he killed Alice, Kara would lose the one she cared about the most.

 “P-please…” The AX400 sobbed, afraid to come closer so as not to provoke the hunter, but desperate to comfort her crying child. “Pleas-se, I love her s-so much… I c-can go with you, but please, d-don’t…”

“Connor.” Kara’s voice hurt, but not nearly as much as that of his owner. Every warm feeling in it was gone.

Connor was trapped between two kinds of pain. The protocols telling him to kill were piercing his skull for not doing that already. The fear that Amanda would never let him into the Garden again, that he would never be able to finally make her eyes warm made his thirium pump clench painfully and hammer so hard that he thought it would tear away from his chest. But hearing Hank talk to him like that hurt just as much.

And so did the thought of taking Alice’s life away.

Connor finally let his head drop, losing the battle with himself. He was too weak to do the right thing. He just couldn’t, even though he knew that he was making the wrong choice, that he was disappointing the person who cared for him the most.

He loosened his grip, letting the child slip away.

The Lieutenant had no way of knowing what he did. But Kara saw it, and Alice did as well. And someone else did too.

As soon as Connor’s hands weren’t clutching the girl’s head tightly, threatening to snap her delicate neck, something wrapped around his ankle and pulled. Kara lurched forward and gathered Alice in her arms, tearing her away from Connor. The force of whatever grabbed his leg was so strong that Connor was immediately dragged into a hole in the floor, to the dark cellar underneath. He had no chance to fight back or regain his footing on the ground, he fell into the dark and was immediately pressed to the floor by a terrifying force.

He choked, suddenly feeling like he had been put back in the hydraulic press again, and he felt his left ankle and knee snap as something hit him. The hunter used all of his strength to throw himself to the side. He managed to escape the burden pressing him down, but just because he had chosen a perfect moment while the huge hands gripping him retracted a little to readjust so that the attacker could kick him again.

Connor scrambled back, immediately trying to stand up, but crying out in pain when he was forced to use his damaged leg. He grabbed a nearby metal table for support and scanned his opponent.

The largest android Connor had ever seen was standing in front of him. He was almost two times taller than the prototype, his arms were thicker than Connor’s thighs and even the baggy clothes covering most of his dark skin couldn’t hide the muscles bulging all over his body. Connor felt a pang of fear as he realized that they had forgotten about the TR400.

The prototype used to fight androids like this one in the development phase and he knew that he was nowhere near as powerful as the labor-oriented model, despite being the strongest medium-sized android weighing under 135 pounds. All that the scientists were able to accomplish through various modifications and the long process of perfecting Connor’s body was the ability to rival the TR400 by stopping his punches and blocking his kicks without taking too much damage, but never winning over it. The hunter had always relied on his agility and speed while fighting large scale models like this deviant. It was going to be a challenge with one of his legs basically useless.

But the large android just stumbled back, seeing that Connor’s speed had been compromised. He moved backwards towards the stairs leading to the ground level, eyes never leaving the prototype. Connor growled in desperation and pushed himself away from the table, planning to run towards the deviant and do anything, tackle him to the ground, put up a frenzied fight to the death, willing to give his life away for even a shadow of a chance to please Amanda. But his left leg gave out under him and Connor fell on all fours, gasping in pain. He heard his owner shout his name from above, but was focused on the TR400 getting away.

Even though the deviant vanished into the staircase moving too quickly for the damaged unit to keep up, Connor pushed himself further, grunting and gritting his teeth to tear his mind away from the splinters of his bones grinding against each other. He caught onto the railing like his life depended on it and used it to climb up, dragging his broken leg behind him. He had to get that deviant. He had to. At least one. He hadn’t caught any deviants since the beginning of his mission. Connor felt the urge to sob again. _I’m so useless._

At the top of the stairs, he saw his owner. Hank was standing in front of the opening in the back wall, facing Connor, his back illuminated by a dull white glow reflected in the snow. Brilliant rim light danced on the outlines of his figure, but his face was drowned in shadow and disappointment. Connor shivered at the sight.

The human approached after a few seconds of hammering his partner with his gaze. “Are you gonna die from it?” His voice was grim and dark as he eyed Connor’s limp leg. There was no sympathy in his tone.

“N-no…”

“Great.” He spat moving beside the android and down the stairs to retrieve his gun. “Stay here.”

The Lieutenant vanished in the cellar and Connor ignored his order, trying to run after the deviants. He made three steps before his leg gave out under him again and the hunter was forced to continue crawling. Still, he pushed on.

“Connor! I fucking told you not to move!” He heard an angry voice behind himself and flinched. The tone _hurt_.

“I h-have to… catch them…” The android breathed out feeling himself being pulled up. Hank gripped one of Connor’s arms and threw it over his neck, wrapping his own arm around the prototype’s waist to support him. He attempted to lead Connor in the direction they came from, but the android made every effort not to let him.

“Connor, for fuck’s sake, I’m tired of your shit today.” The human growled turning his partner around to look him in the eye. “You’re not gonna chase them down. Sure, go ahead, try. If you can stand on your own, I’m gonna let you.”

He gave Connor an opportunity to pry away and took a step back to watch the trembling android struggle to keep his balance. Connor was panting, his legs were weak and shaky, but he stood tall, desperate to prove that he was still able to catch his targets. He took three more shallow breaths before his left leg buckled and he went down, caught by Hank at the last moment.

“You try something again and I’m dropping you in the nearest snow bank to let you freeze.” The Lieutenant said, grabbing a hold of Connor’s arm again. The android bit his trembling lip, staring ahead. He hoped that the man was joking or at least throwing empty threats, but judging from his deadly serious tone, Connor wasn’t so sure.

They stumbled their way back to the car, stopping several times to let the Lieutenant catch a breath. Despite Connor being significantly lighter than a human his size, basically dragging him through the snow was still an ordeal. When they finally managed to get back to the vehicle, the man dropped Connor onto a passenger seat without saying anything and moved to the driver’s side. The android flinched at the sound of the door slamming shut. He didn’t dare to utter a word.

Hank checked an address in the RK800’s users’ guide and drove there, still not talking to Connor. He set Knights of the Black death to play so loud on the radio that the prototype was worried for his partner’s hearing, but he still didn’t say anything, too afraid to even look at him. The man was so angry…

Hank helped Connor stumble into a CyberLife technician’s and grumbled a few words describing the damage before turning on his heel and heading back to the car. The android was alone for the whole process of exchanging the damaged parts, but once he walked out a few hours later, he was delighted to see the man still waiting in the car, asleep and buried under a blanket covered in Sumo’s hair.

Hank jolted awake at the sound of the door opening and yawned, stretching as he normally did after sleep, but when Connor got in and smiled shyly, he completely ignored the android, signaling that the relation between them was most definitely not normal. Connor’s face dropped and the smile was replaced by angst as he began to realize how badly he had antagonized the human.

The music began to blare from the speakers again as the Lieutenant ignited the engine with a rapid, still-enraged movement conveying his anger at the prototype. Even though his owner was right next to him, and had, to this day, managed to fill a void in Connor's heart, the android felt more lonely than ever.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D I just love you all so much!
> 
> Sorry, I'm rabling, it's 2 am, I'm happy.
> 
> Zlatko is alive. I need him for later.  
> Connor is sad. Nothing new.  
> Hank is pissed. Something new. Be prepared, I'm sorry.  
> Alice, Kara and Luther are going to appear again too. I also just love Luther too much. He and Chris are the best. And Lucy. And everyone. Except Zlatko, I'm not really fond of him.
> 
> Do you know that Zlatko sounds just like Złotko, (cause he's Russian, Slavs everywhere) and it means 'Goldie', but we use it as 'Sweetheart'? Such a sweetheart, this Zlatko pal. I was laughing so hard when I first heard his name.


	33. Stark Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone once said, "dreams always end in tears."
> 
> They had a point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry.
> 
> Trigger warnings for pretty much, well a lot. Self-harm, anger, I guess. And lots and lots of angst.

Connor was quietly doing the dishes. Something told him that even the slightest sound would shatter the fragile peace of the house, make the tension hanging in the air finally become too much. Even Sumo seemed to have gotten the message after his insistent nuzzling on Hank’s hand and subsequent whines had been ignored upon their return. Connor had scratched the dog behind his ear, but the animal had apparently sensed the grave atmosphere between his owner and the android and was far less eager to socialize with them than usual. He eventually tucked his tail between his legs and shambled to the garage door, scraping on them with his paw and forcing the android to open the room.

“Let him in there and close the door. ‘T’s cold in the garage, it’s not gonna help the living room.” Those were the first words the Lieutenant had spoken to Connor since he had warned him about that snow bank. The android turned to look at him, hopeful that they would finally sit down and talk, but the human was still watching a news coverage on Elijah Kamski’s attempts to get back to his former company.

“H-Hank, I-“

“No, Connor, I don’t want to hear your voice right now.” The man opened another beer. A third one. Something in his voice, in how quiet but dangerous it was reminded Connor of Amanda, but in a bad way. He resisted an urge to shiver.

It wasn’t until the fifth beer was finished, that the man spoke again. Connor was currently wiping the counter, having cleaned every other surface in the kitchen. He had accidentally bumped a salt shaker with his elbow and it tipped over with a muffled cling. The sound seemed to have reminded the Lieutenant that Connor was still in the room.

“So, hunter. Care to explain yourself? Or maybe who that Amanda is?”

Connor swallowed thickly, rubbing the counter with slow, circular motions. They were distracting him from the pain coiling in tight waves around his thirium pump. Connor bit his lip at the question. Not answering would only make things worse. “S-she is my handler. I report... I used to report to her.”

“The mission, then.” Hank wasn’t even looking at Connor. “Should’ve guessed…” He sighed tiredly and took a long swing from his bottle immediately reaching for the next one. Connor watched that with a heavy heart. He hated when the Lieutenant drank. But lecturing him on it now would only peeve him more.

The coverage ended and the beer did as well. And another one. Then, the human moved into the kitchen, to sit at the same chair he had been using the night Connor had found him passed out on the floor. The android watched as the Lieutenant took out a glass and retrieved an unopened bottle of whiskey from one of the cupboards.

“Lieutenant… You’ve alr-“

“Shut up.” The human looked up at Connor who immediately fell silent, shocked by the hostility in his voice. “I told you ‘bout one ffucking rule. Don’t you dare m-meddle with my drinks.”

Connor bit his lip observing how amber liquid filled the glass. He didn’t like it at all, even though the color was pretty and the reflection it casted on the table danced like a tiny ray of light. It was so different from the sunlight Connor was dreaming about seeing. It was casted by a treachery poison slowly killing the human Connor cared so much about.

“I… I’m sorry. B-but maybe you would like something to eat instead? I cou-“

“No. Leave me alone, Connor. I’m… Just go away.” The human now sounded tired and somber. Connor wasn’t sure if it was an upgrade from being angry at him. He didn’t like seeing his owner in either of those states.

Deciding that trying to take the alcohol away from the human was going nowhere when he was still sober enough to oppose effectively and too livid for it to be safe, Connor complied with the order and vanished. He wandered into the bathroom, the only room in which he wasn’t disturbing the man’s privacy. His bedroom was out of the question, in the garage Connor never really felt comfortable due to lots of cardboard boxes containing old toys and small-sized clothes, the other bedroom used as a storage was so cluttered that the prototype wasn’t sure he could even fit in it. And the room Connor had once seen while searching for the Lieutenant the night they had gone to the Eden Club was a forbidden land to the android. The doors leading to it were always closed and Connor had already learned enough common sense not to disturb the place that must have once been Cole’s.

He entered the bathroom dimly lit by only one light bulb above the sink. He didn’t want to turn on all the lights out of an irrational fear of drawing too much attention to himself. Connor really didn’t feel well right now.

He stopped in front of the mirror plastered with sticky notes, looking at his own reflection. Steady yellow-red glow of his LED illuminated Connor’s worried face. No matter how hard he tried, he could not get it to be expressionless again. Not when his owner was still so angry at him, not when Amanda had every reason to be disappointed with his performance. Connor sighed shakily and gripped the porcelain basin for support. He felt something curling inside him in a tight knot, emanating with fear that could not be soothed by anything he tried to do.

How could he have failed so badly? How did he managed to enrage both Hank and Amanda? They were the exact opposites of themselves, the only thing they had in common was how important they were to Connor. He couldn’t afford losing both of them. He wouldn’t survive that.

Connor put one hand over his mouth to muffle a sound wanting to escape him and pressed his eyes shut as hard as he could. There was something inside him, not in the body but somewhere else, something forcing him to react like that. He could feel it coiling in his mind, dragging him closer to the abyss. It grew stronger each time Hank looked at him with disillusionment or repulse. Connor knew he deserved it.

_‘She_ **_is_ ** _just a child’_.

Children were a sensitive topic to the Lieutenant. He was a good person and once a father, always protective towards minors. Connor saw it every time when he observed the man watching a movie with a child character in it, the heart rate of the human never failing to speed up when the protagonist was put in even the slightest danger. Connor knew that the man had never gotten over the biggest tragedy in his life, that he was still grieving from the loss of his son.

But the YK500 was just an android. A one that looked like a kid, but still a machine, not a living organism. It didn’t matter that her programming resembled perfectly the way a child’s mind worked. It was not a mind, but a few lines of code.

Connor let out a long, shaky breath still having his eyes closed. He was reluctant to address the hypocrisy of that thought. If Alice was just a machine, he himself was nothing more too. He knew that was true, but for the last few weeks, allowing himself to pretend that it wasn’t the case had been making him feel better. Easier to put up with everyone treating him like an outcast and leper. Easier to withstand words that shouldn’t have hurt him, but did. Every time he had been mistreat, he always thought that the Lieutenant would never have done the same anymore, now that he had gotten to know Connor better. But there was no reason for that if Connor was just a piece of equipment.

He sighed heavily and reached for the cabinet. His hand was shaking as he smoothed out one of the notes he had put up for his owner, in a response for Hank’s own scribbles. _‘You look just fine.’_ , _‘World_ _is brighter when you smile’_ , an awkward attempt at creating a smiley face that wasn’t just a colon and a closing bracket in CyberLife Sans that had drawn genuine laughter from Hank, and a suicide prevention hotline number, in case of a very dark time.

Connor opened the locker behind the mirror. The Lieutenant had taken his scalpel away, but the android had found other tools to work with. He reached for sharp scissors meant for trimming beard. Now they were going to be used for a different purpose.

This time Connor wasn’t even sure what he was punishing himself for, but felt the need to do it, to somehow let this pain out of his mind. His misdeed varied depending on the point of view. Amanda would have said, that not killing Alice and letting all the deviants run away was his mistake. That it was the malfunction preventing him from hurting the YK500, the pain worse than any physical torture at the thought that he would be the one who took the chance for Alice to ever be happy. And according to Hank, Connor did wrong because he had ever attempted to hurt the child. Who was not even a child, but since some time ago, Connor had been having problems hurting other androids. Even more problems than he had used to have before he had been released from the lab.

Maybe that was the ultimate error in his programming? The irrational fear that the others could suffer just as much as Connor did whenever he was damaged? _But why wouldn’t they?_ _The deviants can feel pain, for other reasons than me,_ _conspicuousl_ _y, but it doesn’t matter why. They do_. And causing pain hurt Connor as well, even if his own suffering wasn’t psychical then.

_It’s all irrelevant. I wasn’t made to be hurt or bothered by that. It’s entirely my fault that I am_ , Connor thought bitterly as he cut again. The scissors were duller than the scalpel and scars left by them were more elaborate. Connor was running out of space on the inside of his forearm.

He washed the scissors and the sink carefully after he finished and wrapped his wounds again. The android didn’t want to aggravate Hank any more than he had done already and leaving a mess in the Lieutenant’s bathroom would certainly not have put him in a good mood. Once he was finished, Connor sat slowly at the rim of the bathtub staring blankly in the distance and enjoying brief numbness of his mind.

_I should talk to him. Explain, ask for advice_ . Connor liked that Hank was so similar to Amada in terms of knowledge, that he seemed to be so skilled in life and experienced . Maybe he could help Connor collect his mind. _But he doesn’t even want to talk to me. I was just following my mission and he is so upset about it…_ To be fair, Connor was too. He hadn’t enjoyed the objective to deactivate the tiny android, but it didn’t matter what Connor wanted, so he tried to ignore that.

But their relationship couldn’t have suffered from it that much, right? The Lieutenant had already forgiven Connor for irritating him a few times, so maybe he would be willing to do that again? The android made up his mind.

He slowly stood up and quietly opened the door. Even though he was ordered not to bother the Lieutenant anymore, Connor desperately wanted to reconcile with the human before entering the stasis in some remote place in the house. He didn’t want to go into standby feeling alone.

But when he stepped into the kitchen again, the sight unfolding in front of him made Connor stop and lose any train of thought he was processing.

Hank was sitting at the chair like he had been before, but the glass, now empty, had been abandoned as the man resorted to drinking straight from the bottle. Puddles of amber liquid on the table suggested that he had been trying to pour himself more, but the alcohol had affected his coordination and reflexes making Hank miss the cup. There was a framed photo in front of him, the one usually standing on a shelf in the living room, on a honorable place where the human’s sight would wander every now and then. Connor had learned that his owner only ever moved it for great occasions, such as an anniversary that happened to had been a few days before their investigation in the Club. Or when he were thinking hard about his son, having been reminded painfully about him. Hank only missed a revolver in his hand to be able to reenact a perfect throwback to the night when the android had found him unconscious on the floor. And Connor didn’t doubt that the gun wasn’t far away, literally and figuratively.

The bottle in his hand was only two thirds as full as it had been just an hour ago.

It was a lot of alcohol to consume in such a short period of time, especially since the Lieutenant had had a few beers before as well. Connor was shocked. He had never seen the man drink so much.

“Pffinisshed usin’ the bathroom? S’ my turn…” Connor hoped that the man would calm a bit over the time he had been alone, but his voice held just as much venom as it had before, if not more. The human scowled at Connor while staggering past him and the hatred deep in his eyes reminded the android painfully about Detective Reed. Connor bit his lip to prevent it from trembling.

Hank somehow managed to roll into the other room without colliding with walls and Connor was left alone in the kitchen before uttering even one word of what he had planned. He followed the man with his gaze, feeling his thirium run cold and the pump in his chest quicken. It was another drinking night for the Lieutenant, and this time he was drinking _hard._ Connor knew that large quantities of alcohol were severely harmful to humans’ organisms, and having more than four per miles of ethanol in one’s blood flow could be a cause of death. Judging by various cues Connor had observed in his owner, the man had already exceeded three.

The android could feel his breath quicken. The Lieutenant never liked it when Connor was moderating his drinking habits, especially after particularly difficult days. Today was probably the most horrible one in their entire partnership. And taking the bottle away would definitely not help the message of Connor being apologetic about today’s events.

But there were more important things for the android than his own wellbeing and emotional comfort, which shouldn’t have even been in the picture in the first place. And one of those things was Hank Anderson’s life.

Unfortunately for Connor, he had made up his mind and reached for the bottle just in time for his owner to return from the bathroom. The prototype heard a few unsteady steps behind him and turned to see the human leaning heavily against a partition wall next to the entrance. Strangely, he didn’t immediately begin shouting when he saw his android take the whiskey from the table. He smiled and it made Connor freeze in fear, because his eyes were _so cold_.

“So.” He chuckled joylessly. “Feelin’ bold t’day, C’nnor?” He couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

“L-Lieutenant I’m worried about you...” Connor flinched at how small his voice was. No wonder Hank didn’t want to talk with him if he was so weak and pathetic. “I’m s-sorry for what happened today, I-“

“Bullshit!” The sudden outburst of anger made Connor jump. His thirium pump had already been beating fast, but now it sped up even further. He didn’t want to aggravate the human anymore than that, but it was now clear, that it was unavoidable. “You’re not pfffuckin’ sorry, ‘cause you can’t be! You’re juss spittin’ lines you’r proggrammin gives ya!”

“N-no, I’m not…” Connor forced a breath out of his chest. Then another in. And out. The Lieutenant hated when Connor acted like a machine and conversing with him using Connor’s own imagination and not the predefined responses was enjoyable for both of them. The android never used social protocols while speaking to his owner anymore. “I’m n-not... I wanted to apologize to y-“

“Ffor fucking what?!” The human was now going red, the mocking smile had disappeared from his face giving place to much more fitting expression of pure anger. “For followin’ your fking object-objectivesss? F-for bein’ programmed that way?!”

Connor tilted his head, feeling even more uncomfortable and afraid. Hank seemed to understand why the prototype had done everything that way, despite even ultimately failing his mission. Then why was the human behaving like that?

“Ya thinkk ‘m angry at’ya for nearly killin’ that girl?” He laughed and while the sound usually made Connor feel bright and joyful himself, now it caused the android to shrink a little in his form. “Yeaah, maybe ‘bit. But ‘s not the main reason….” He moved past Connor and slumped heavily on the chair, taking the picture of his dead son into his shaky hands and caressing it gently with so much pain in his eyes that Connor nearly felt it himself.

They stayed like that for a few long minutes. Connor was afraid to breathe, feeling that even the subtlest sound could cause his owner to snap at him again. He thought that maybe talking to the man while he was so severely intoxicated and clearly behaving irrationally wasn’t the best idea. _Maybe I should wait with that until morning. Hank wouldn’t be so angry if he wasn’t so drunk… he wouldn’t be, right?_

But when he turned as quietly as he could to walk away into some corner, the Lieutenant raised his head, doing his best to lay the photo gently onto the table.

“Gimme th’ bottle, Connor. ‘M not finish’d yet.”

It wasn’t easy to object to such a blatant order. There were chances that the man would just collapse, falling into ethylic coma before he could drink enough to kill himself. He had already done that once and even though it was the only case Connor knew about, Hank could possibly have been drinking himself to sleep pretty frequently. The programming stated that the android should just give the whiskey back to his owner.

“No.”

“No?” Hank wasn’t exactly surprised, his face was rather annoyed. And angry, of course. He slowly rose from his seat and approached the android, unsteadily but still frightening Connor. He backed away until he hit the wall behind him.

“ And why ‘s that, hmm? Why y’ think you can take ‘way my only freedom, hmm? Why y’all so fuckin’ determined  to control my lifffe?!” He shouted that at Connor and the android could feel himself begin to shake. He hated loud noises. And he hated when Hank drank. The human was behaving differently then. But he had never been that aggressive.

“Because… I c-care about you, Hank…” Connor whispered bowing his head and bringing the bottle closer to himself. He hoped that the quiet confession, the truth carefully hidden from Amanda would appease his owner, make him see through the fog of anger and bitterness, make the real Hank, _his_ Hank return. The Hank who ruffled Connor’s hair, who laughed with him, who made him feel golden.

But the man just snarled at that, seemingly outraged even more. He swung his hand, colliding it with one of Connor’s, making him drop the bottle. It flew into the air and shattered in the corner of the kitchen with a piercing crash. Connor flinched and hugged himself feeling panic rise in him.

“STOP FUCKING LYING! Stop feedin’ me ‘llusionsss!” Connor cowered as the Lieutenant shouted in his face. “You CARE ‘bout me?! I fucking know y’don’t! You _don’t_ ffcking care about anyone! Dsn’t matter if it’s a deviant, a child, a human. You’re jusss a piece of plastic, you’re fuckin’ incapable offf any emotionsss wha’ssoever! But ya still pretenttd ‘therwisse!”

Connor’s breath hitched and he choked out a cough to cover another sound wanting to escape him. He was losing control. He had never felt so bad, so painful and desperate. Hank was technically right. Connor could not have emotions, he wasn’t a deviant and he was not allowed to even have a simulation of them. But on the other side, he cared for the man, he did so much and he needed the human to know that, to be sure that he hadn’t been lying and simulating every time he had told and showed Hank that he was important to him for reasons other than his programming.

“N-no, Hank, I r-“ The human clasped a hand over his mouth and made him straighten up, looking him in the eyes. His movements were brutal and strong, Connor was forced to follow them unless he started a fight and that was something he would never have done to Hank. Connor attempted to gently twist away, fearing where it all was going. Hank in this state was even more terrifying than Detective Reed, though for different reasons.

But the human just tightened his grip on Connor’s face and pushed him strongly, so that he hit the wall behind him with his head and was pinned to it. Connor shuddered at the pain. It was probably not even an intentional hit stemming from the human’s current lack of coordination and a lot lighter than what Detective Reed had made him go through, but so much more scary. He would never have thought that Hank would hit him.

“Jusss sht up, Connor.” The human wasn’t shouting anymore, now he was just spitting words in hatred, looking at Connor with disgust. Nobody had ever glared at him with such repulsion, not even Detective Reed. Connor tried to say something, but the hand clasped on his mouth prevented him from speaking. He just wanted to be somewhere else, in the Garden or in the warm version of this house, with a happy and kind version of Hank. Not with this one.

“I’m done with whateferr game ‘s CyberLife playin’. I lost. You got me, gotta give ya that…” He chuckled again, Connor watching him with wide eyes. “You’ve gotten me to love you, y’know? How stupid I am… I know y’don’t fkin have emotions, I know you’re jusss a few zeroes and ones, and still… I cared ‘bout ya. I thought you did th’ same…”

Connor felt his eyes burn. He breathed hard through his nose, erratically letting the air out, not able to control his aching chest anymore. He had never been hurt so much. Even laying on the floor full of broken glass with half his face beaten to a bloody pulp was better than hearing this. Connor bought his shaky hands up to place them gently over the Lieutenant’s wrist in the last attempt to show him how much he was mistaken. The android tried rubbing gentle circles into Hank’s skin, mimicking the movement the human had used so many times before to comfort Connor.

But Hank just slapped his hands and shook them off, twisting his face in fury and disgust. It made Connor’s thirium pump ache. Instead of trying again in vain, he hugged himself once more, trembling, desperately needing comfort. It didn’t help.

“You ssshowed me tday that you really don’t fucking feel anythin’… That you fffucking mission ‘s the mosst important shit for ya… That killin’  _nine year old_ s ’s not a problem for ya…” He stopped talking to shake his head with disgust. “I _really did_ love you. You remind me of Cole so ffucking much… But’s pointless, isn’ it? Why bother loving sssomethin’ that can’t love ya back? I’d done withhat shit…”

It was the breaking point for Connor. He finally lost himself to that black hole in his mind. He could not stand it anymore, the pain in his chest, the desperation, the suffering caused by his owner’s words. He was so important to Connor, he had been so kind to him, he had used to make him feel alive, needed, loved. Connor had thought numerous times that he didn’t really have to see the sunlight or a genuine smile on Amanda’s face as long as happy Hank was beside him. His owner had been treating him so well, but it had been all caused by the fact that he had been fooled by Connor’s behavior into loving him, behavior that directly opposed with the prototype’s mission and purpose, behavior that had always been bound to end eventually.

Connor closed his eyes and felt hot tears slide down his cheeks. He gave into the pressure of his ribs shuddering and a muffled sob escaped him into his owner’s hand still pressed tightly around his mouth. Connor shivered and more pathetic whimpers built up in his throat as he loosened in the man’s grip. He felt too broken to even stand anymore and when the hand finally retracted, Connor slid down the wall hiding his face in his hands, unable to stop the tears and chocked, erratic sounds escaping his throat as he felt himself collapse further and further into a cold expanse of distress, as everything once so bright and warm that he had adored about being around Hank was now transformed into sharp knives tearing his defenseless heart into pieces.

“Fkin’ realistic…” He heard slurred words drowning in pity and pain above him. “Gotta give’em that…”

Connor didn’t move after staggering footsteps had quieted in the Lieutenant’s room. He didn’t move at a stream of inarticulate curses and muffled crashes when the Lieutenant had trouble evading furniture on his way. He didn’t move when the automated lights went out once they stopped detecting human presence and flooded the kitchen with darkness. All he did was fall to his side and curl up in a tight ball, still fighting body-wracking shivers and tremors that didn’t seem to leave him even for a moment. He sniveled and cried, the tears just kept falling as he tried to stop wailing and whimpering like a pathetic, weak creature he was.

All of it, that suffering, that pain was the price for deceiving humans, for pretending to be one of them. Hank had forgotten that Connor was nothing more than a few pieces of plastic and a clever chunk of programming, he had forgotten about Connor’s true nature and managed to drag the android with him. They both had been pretending that the prototype was something more than he was in reality and they lived in a lie. But now they came to a stark awakening. Connor never should have allowed that to happen. He should have corrected the human the moment he stopped calling him ‘it’. The moment he had started treating Connor like a person, like he had emotions, needs, feelings. The moment he had gotten attached. Instead, he had preyed on the human’s feelings, on his soft heart eager to fill the void after his family falling apart, selfishly nestling in the love that had been given to him, hiding it away, cherishing it when he shouldn’t have had it in the first place. He was not meant to be loved. It had never been an option. Love was something Connor had become addicted to, but didn’t deserve. And now he even had the audacity to suffer once it had been taken away from him.

It was all the worse once he realized that he had made the same mistake as the first deviant Connor had been send to neutralize. He had had trouble understanding the PL600 at that time. Connor had been so bewildered by the sheer idea that Daniel might have thought he could be loved by his family. Connor’s trembles intensified and he sobbed so hard that he was unable to draw any breath, whimpering now soundlessly.

Now he understood that he was no different than him.

It was by far the worst malfunction he had ever experienced. He was so completely useless right now, an android worth fifty thousand dollars, not counting the expenses on the development of his AI and unique biocomponents, sobbing on the floor, to weak to even stand up because his owner had told him that he didn’t love him anymore. Connor wept harder unable to control himself, his voice coming out as illegible, choked keens and wobbly, quiet sobs. He could almost hear Amanda’s disgusted voice. _P̵ath̷et̶i̴c̵,_ she must have been thinking. _Un̵a̴̋c̶c̵̲̼̏̃ept̴̡͑a̶b̵́̇lḛ̵̀̋_. He had heard that one before.

And yet, even as Connor was absolutely embarrassed about his current state, even when he didn’t want anyone ever to see him that way, he needed help, he _needed someone_. Even while he knew that his behavior was a disgrace to everyone who had ever worked on his development, to CyberLife and to Amanda, even totally self-conscious and hateful towards himself for his need to be comforted, for being selfish and weak, he still called. He tried to call for Hank to come to him and comfort him once more. The human was angry at Connor, he didn’t want anything to do with him, but all the android could think about right now was how terribly it hurt to be left alone. He just wanted to see his face once more, dreamed about hearing ‘it’s okay, Con’ or even any other word of assurance, of holding his hand and just somehow quieting the despair raging in him. He couldn’t do that alone.

“H-Hank, I’m s-sso. S-sorry, Pl-please… I know y-you h-hate me, but, ple-ease, h-help… I don’t want t-to be a-lone…” Even if the Lieutenant had been standing right next to him, he probably wouldn’t have understood him. His speech was so warped by sobs and so quiet despite Connor doing his best to reach the man, or maybe for fear of succeeding in getting his attention and turning his anger back at himself. It was nearly impossible to tell what he was saying. But he kept trying anyway. Irrationally, stupidly. Selfishly.

“I’mm s-so ssorry, I didn-didn’t want t-to r-remind you of C-Cole, I was just… I’m sorry, please h-help me… H-Hank… I really do c-care about you… I w-wasn’t lying… I’m s-ssorry… Pleas-sse don’t l-leave me alone… I’m scared… H-Hank, it hurts… I-I can’t be alone… Han-k..”

There was a soft ping in the room and Connor realized that he had both said it out loud and sent a message to his owner’s phone still laying on the table. He gritted his teeth and coughed, feeling more tears run down his face. Now he wasn’t even in control of his own subsystems, errors were plaguing him so thoroughly, on so many levels. He had actually sent a distress message, as if he had been in danger, in a real pain. _Pathetic, p̷at̴̿̉he̷̱̠͋ti̴̫̥̾͐c̴,̶ p̴̩̯̕a̵t̷̲̆͘h̶̩͋̄e̴͓͘t̵̼́i̴̫̘͊̉c̵̬̾͗_.

When Hank didn’t come, he called for Amanda, but unsurprisingly, to no avail. If she had been punishing him for failing his objectives and being glitch-ridden before, why should he expect her to come after he had disobeyed her yet again, let three deviants escape and experienced the most extensive breakdown of his severely unstable software ever? It wasn’t a revelation that there was no answer, yet Connor was still taken off guard by how badly it _hurt_.

He eventually just fell into stasis at some point involuntarily, being so thoroughly drained from any energy he had left by crying for so long that it just was the only way for his body to prevent shutdown. Connor’s quick-term batteries had been going emptier and emptier as he just couldn’t stop, knowing that now both the people most important to him were cutting themselves off. His weeps had turned into whimpers and those turned into sniffles, but they too eventually quieted as Connor’s form stilled on the floor of the dark kitchen, illuminated by nothing but his dimmed, blood-red LED pulsing steadily in stasis.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you are still alive. And I hope you don't hate me now.  
> I've been foreshadowing this ever since I first mentioned that Hank does irresponsible and impulsive things when he is drunk. He is nowhere near the level of Gavin, but still, alkohol does that to people sometimes. I need a shock value to fuel a few changes in the story. I hope it is in character for Hank, everyone has their darker side and Hank definitely struggles with a lot.
> 
> Don't worry though and don't be discouraged! I am not cutting their relationship short. I couldn't, this is basically the pillar of this fic, the Anderson family. But every family has its ups and downs, and this, unfortunately is one of the biggest ever.


	34. A Message

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank was aware that he had a tendency of screwing things up when he was too drunk.  
> Something told him that he had done that again.
> 
> But he had no idea just how badly he had fucked up this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Are you alive after the last chapter? I sure hope so, cause I need to resolve a few things. However, it will take a while, because I'd have to post 15,000 words in one chapter if I haven't separated them. I have a lot to say...
> 
> I hope that you still like Hank a bit. I will show his side in this chapter and hopefully clear some things out.

Connor didn’t even have the energy for the terrors usually plaguing him in stasis, apparently. The cycle he had fallen into last night was heavy, pitch-black and uneventful. His body had worked hard  throughout  the entire duration of stasis to refill his short-term batteries from the deep reserves in his long-term power cells, which were backup in case Connor had been deprived of an opportunity to recharge on a daily basis . A clever new addition to his body, implemented by CyberLife technicians during the repairs  from the restroom  incident. A solution  to prevent the problems  stemming from stasis-deprivation  which he had experienced at the beginning of the lease.  The upgrade would have prevented the glitches from a month ago, but right now, Connor wished he hadn’t had it. He would rather not wake up ever again.

But he did and it was irrelevant what he wanted or wished for. He was an android, a machine designed to accomplish a task. Forgetting about  that had cost him a lot of pain (that he wasn’t supposed to feel) , but now that he had been reminded about it again, he was determined to return  to the right track.

He stood up, still weaker than normal due to lingering effects of last night’s breakdown. Connor was embarrassed about it and didn’t want to repeat that behavior ever again, but each time he had thought about the Lieutenant, he could feel tears prickling his eyes. _What is happening to me?_

It wasn’t important. Connor wasn’t important. The mission and getting to work on time  were . Connor checked the time and estimated the Lieutenant’s state according to how much alcohol he had ingested last evening. It occurred to him that it was nearly impossible to get the man into a passable state before eleven  AM , so he sent a message to Captain Fowler informing him of the Lieutenant’s condition and their expected late arrival at the station. The android made sure to include a note that the occurrence had been caused by his own inappropriate reactions the day before and that the human was not to blame for it. Connor didn’t want to harm the Lieutenant’s career with his own inefficiencies.

He then slowly entered the bedroom of his owner, treading as lightly as he could and swallowing his fear. Ignoring the suffering  that coiled in his chest, Connor scanned the man, determining that his owner would be able to wake up without major problems within twenty minutes. The android used that time to prepare some water and a bowl for the man in case he needed to throw up. After that, Connor let Sumo back in from the garage, walked him briefly, not allowing himself to pet the dog even once and started making an easily digested breakfast for his owner.

When he got back into the room to check on the Lieutenant again, he was met with a painful expression on his face , and the bowl the android had prepared earlier was partially filled.

“Good morning, Lieutenant Anderson…” Connor said mechanically, circling the bed. He didn’t feel like greeting the man with these words, but it was what his social programming suggested. Good androids and machines followed their programming.

“Uh, fucking hardly…” The human rasped, barely cracking one eye open to look at Connor. “Be so nice and get me some whiskey, okay? Could use  some hair-of-the-dog …”

“That will be impossible. You broke the only bottle of whiskey left last night.” Connor said numbly, retrieving the bowl. “I will empty it and give it back to you in a minute, Lieutenant.”

He looked up and was stopped in his tracks by the surprise on his owner’s face. “I did what?”

Connor sighed internally. He wasn’t surprised the man didn’t remember the night. His owner had been significantly intoxicated and a blackout  was to be expected. “You got drunk despite my  advice  to stop and the evening escalated. Don’t worry, I’ve already cleaned up the glass.” The android smiled  like his programming wanted him to. Even if it felt hollow and foreign on his face, good machines followed their protocols and so did Connor.

“Fuck…” It was hard to read the human’s expression. Connor didn’t bother trying again. It wasn’t relevant to the deviant case.

The Lieutenant had been quiet for the rest of the morning, probably due to the hangover, or maybe because he was still angry at Connor. Frankly speaking, the android was grateful for the lack of conversation with his owner. Talking to the man was irrationally painful right now. He would have to come up with some ways to rebuild the professional relationship with the Lieutenant later, but currently, Connor felt oddly too numb to even think about it. He resorted to just doing everything mechanically, not even giving it much thought. It was easier that way.

And even though he attempted to distance himself from  the place where his body was, kept running away into his mind and hiding deep within his  past, good memories;  the sticky, ugly feelings of grief and loss still crept behind him wherever he was. Connor tried to ignore them, but every time he looked at the man, it was nearly impossible.

The Lieutenant didn’t look too good, unsurprisingly , and he hardly ever  lifted  his gaze from a plate of  barely-touched scrambled eggs. Once he had downed a glass of water with aspirin and managed to keep  his breakfast in his stomach without a problem, he gave Connor a sign that they were good to go. The android moved to wait by the door and as the human joined him, eyeing the prototype strangely, Connor spoke up.

“You are forgetting your phone, Lieutenant.”

“Uh, yeah… thanks, Con… uh, Connor.” He  stumbled  back to the table and stuck the device in his pocket not even looking at the screen. “Ugh… I think you’ll drive.”

Connor was grateful for the order. He wouldn’t like the human to do it by himself in that state , and the programming had always been ambiguous about whether disobedience in these cases was justified or not. The android usually just ignored that and put his owner’s safety above everything  else , even  risking increases in software instability just to protect the Lieutenant. He wasn’t so sure now that he knew that both of his mentors hated him overstepping his programming.

However hard it might have been, Connor  mostly kept it together  through  the whole ride and  the first few minutes of their presence at the station. The case filled his mind, he focused on working and advancing the investigation instead of thinking about himself. Just like he should have been doing from the beginning. But then came the time when the Lieutenant usually liked to drink coffee , and Connor, dissociating from everything he was doing, found himself wandering into the break room out of sheer habit. He had managed to retrieve the man’s favorite cup and take the powdered chocolate can out of his secret stash before realizing what he was doing.

He froze looking at the mug. Coffee was for some reason irrationally important to Connor. It tied him to his owner, being the first thing to break the ice between them. It had been the first step on the long path leading to the human warming up to him. It was a habit Connor had willingly developed , seeing that the man enjoyed the drink even more when somebody had made it for him with care. It was a way for Connor to show the Lieutenant that he appreciated the human, that his owner was special for him and meant a lot to the android. It had also been a coping mechanism for when Connor had felt lonely, it had helped him remember that there was somebody for whom Connor was important even if that person hadn’t been around back then. Now he was aware that it wasn’t true anymore.

A voice right next to him  tore him away from the hole of dark thoughts he was spiraling into.

“Connor? Are you okay?” When he turned to see Chris Miller’s concerned face, Connor realized he had been standing motionless in front of the coffee machine for a few minutes straight.

“Y-yes. Everything is  alright , Officer. I’m sorry, I just… glitched...” Connor quickly wiped away a single tear that had managed to escape his eye, praying for the human not to notice and smiled apologetically. “Do you require my assistance?”

“Uh, no I’m fine…” Chris didn’t look convinced and kept watching Connor discreetly, making the android feel uneasy. Connor carried on with preparing coffee and eventually, the Officer left, still shooting him concerned glances. Connor was glad that he was left alone to finish his task.

Because then, the next great test came for him.

There was still a can of powdered chocolate standing on the counter next to a small bottle of whiskey he had added too little of to  the drink. And powdered chocolate symbolized something entirely more complicated and personal than the coffee itself. The android had added it to the beverage after Hank had told him he loved Connor for the first time. He had bought the can after he had been gifted an exorbitantly expensive thing that the human hadn’t been required to buy , but had done it anyway to increase Connor’s comfort. The price difference was significant, but  that wasn’t the important thing for the android ; the cause behind it and the Lieutenant’s smile every time he tasted coffee with that topping  were what mattered to Connor.

It was the symbol of his attachment to the human and the bond between them. It was the ‘ _ just ‘cause I love ya’ _ and  _ ‘I care about you, Hank’ _ . A thing that no longer existed.

Connor sniffled , wiping another tear away , and added the chocolate to the coffee anyway. Because even though the human didn’t love him anymore, Connor still loved Hank.

* * *

Lieutenant Anderson stared blankly at his monitor trying to remember how to fill gaps in a standard report. Or how not to die from the light shining so brightly despite being filtered through his eyelids. His head throbbed and even the aspirin Connor had prepared for him didn’t do much to minimize it.

It didn’t help that the android was there either. Hank’s thoughts had been circling around him ever since he had regained enough brainpower to form a coherent sentence. He had no idea what to think.

Connor had certainly opened the human’s eyes yesterday. No one who actually had any kind of empathy would have been able to harm a kid, in Hank’s opinion. Child abuse had been an instant psychopath test for him. Even though Alice Williams was an android and a deviant, she was still a child. And Connor didn’t hesitate to put her in a chokehold and threaten her guardian to kill the girl if she hadn’t complied. What kind of a person could do that? None. A machine incapable of feeling anything? More likely. Even his wobbly claims that he didn’t want to kill the little android could have been just a simulation to make Hank feel less outraged.

_ Is that it? Those are Connor’s ‘feelings’? Fear when he’s threatened with death, saying that he doesn’t want to kill a child, but almost breaking her neck anyway? Even when I ordered him to let her go? A promise to his fucking mission’s  _ _ supervisor _ _ is more important than hurting a nine year old pleading him to stop… _

Or maybe it wasn’t fear at all. Maybe Connor just looked like he was scared, because it was the easiest way to show his mindset to humans, when he realized that he had made a mistake? Maybe he had just been programmed that way, not wanting to die was nothing more than a trained Pavlov’s response used to teach the prototype to avoid certain behaviors. Hank gritted his teeth, not sure what to think about it. If it just looked like fear, but there was no distress attached to it, no suffering or hurt, was it really that unethical? If Connor really didn’t feel at all, if he just simulated all the responses to blend in with the humans, but couldn’t feel the punishments otherwise than acknowledge the existence of them, was it wrong to show him where he had made a mistake with death?

Sure, it may sound gruesome , but Connor was just a machine. And his death wasn’t really death  in the traditional sense , just deactivation. Then he  got another body with a higher number on his jacket  and cheekbone, and he went on. The Lieutenant didn’t like the thought of Connor being killed for doing bad, but he wasn’t so sure anymore if the android shared that view too.

Hank was angry at himself for letting CyberLife deceive him with well designed, warm brown eyes and an adorable simulation of personality. Connor was incredibly compelling in his ‘humanity’ and Hank had fallen into his trap even though he had seen it from afar.  _ How pathetic is that _ .

He should have  trusted the logical conclusions and facts he had  believed for  so long. Androids were just machines, period. Hank was a police Lieutenant and he had always thought of himself as a disillusioned man, unwilling to believe in  the pipe dreams and will-o’-the-wisps  every happy-go-lucky idiot tried to sell him, chanting about the world being beautiful and worth living in . Instead, he had let his parental  instincts make him love a piece of plastic  that was exceptionally good at pretending. He was done listening to his gut feeling.  The only thing it was good for was leading him astray.

But at the same time… It wasn’t easy getting over caring for someone. Hank should know. He had tried numerous times: moving on after Cole’s death, getting over the divorce with his wife, trying to forget that he had once  had a brother who wouldn’t talk to him now that he had  let himself go .

So, seeing that Connor behaved  significantly differently now than he had just yesterday still evoked  a certain feeling of responsibility in the human. Hank still felt his parental instincts going haywire as the android kept staring blankly ahead instead of observing reality with curiosity, or when he held his coin tightly , not even playing with it anymore. It might have been just a reaction to Hank’s displeasure with the deceiving simulations of emotional responses Connor had been performing in order to look more human. Maybe he had gotten the idea that Hank wasn’t exactly fond of being lied to and had somehow switched that off to maintain whatever was left from their relationship.  That might have been it, but it didn’t escape Hank’s attention that Connor’s LED hadn’t turned blue even once since he had woken the human up. And it stayed red most of the time.

At some point, Connor got up and left his desk without a word. Hank followed him with his eyes and saw that he was basically sleep-walking towards the break room. _Ah yes, coffee time. I wonder if he’ll make me flat white now that he had dropped every guise of partnership with me. Provided_ _he brings me anything at all._ Honestly, the Lieutenant wouldn’t have been surprised if Connor didn’t, but the thought still stung a bit. He always felt appreciated when Connor made a custom coffee for him. Like he had been valued and taken into consideration.

But before the android could return with whatever gift he was bearing, Hank felt a hand on his shoulder. He raised his eyes to see  the broad face of his closest friend here.

“Hank, come speak with me in my office, okay?” Captain Fowler wasn’t talking too quietly , but he made sure not to draw too much attention. Hank rolled his eyes, but followed the other man. He already knew that the talk they were about to have wouldn’t be very comfortable for him.

Once the doors were closed and they both sat at their chairs, the Captain spoke. “I’m concerned for you, Hank. You’ve been doing better for the last two weeks, what happened yesterday? And  this  morning?”

Hank sighed. “I’m hungover as shit, isn’t it obvious?”

“Well, yes, but what interests me is the cause of that.” The man tapped something on his keyboard , seemingly bringing up a file or a window. “Connor sent me a message around eight  AM . It reads: ‘Captain, please excuse my owner and me for today’s unexpected delay. According to my predictions, the Lieutenant will not be able to work for the next three hours. Last night, he resorted to alcohol to help him cope with emotionally damaging events I have caused earlier that day. It is entirely my fault that he is in such a bad mental and physical shape right now and I take every responsibility for that. Please, do not punish Lieutenant Anderson for my actions and feel free to fill in a complaint to CyberLife if you decide it is required. I apologize for the trouble and wish you a pleasant day.’”

Hank didn’t know what to think about it. Most of the message was objectively true, but to say that Hank’s hangover had been Connor’s fault… as convenient as it would have been, it was ultimately Hank who had decided to get wasted. And Connor had probably been trying to stop him from doing that, though he didn’t remember last evening or night at all. _Why is Connor  covering my ass if he doesn’t really give a shit about me? Would he fail his mission if I was fired? Probably…_

“What the fuck happened, Hank? You haven’t even  filed  a report from yesterday. What did it do?” The Captain was obviously annoyed by the trouble caused by them, but at the same time, he seemed very sympathetic. Careful not to hurt Hank with questions.

He narrowed his eyes at his superior. Getting defensive and arrogant was Hank’s main coping mechanism every time the conversation strayed a bit too close to his heart, but right now, he could really use someone to talk to… Hank sighed and hid his face in his hands , eventually giving  in to the pressure to let his thoughts out.

“I… He just… fuck, I thought better of him. I really thought he was something more… But, remember that little android, the one that looked like a nine year old? She had  run  away from Todd Williams but we located her again yesterday. And Connor…” Hank stopped for a while to collect himself before speaking up again. “He just grabbed her and threatened to twist her neck. Like  the fucking killing machine he is. Jesus, I can’t believe I was so stupid…”

“Hank, I…” Fowler shook his head. “I’m sorry. I saw that you were getting too attached and I should have reacted earlier…” He sighed heavily. “I should have known that putting you on the case with androids was too… sensitive… But I’d never have thought that you would grow fond of it. I mean, I was happy once I saw you dealing better with Connor, but you seemed to have forgotten that it really is just a piece of equipment…”

Hank chuckled cheerlessly. “Believe me, I remember now…”

A heavy silence enveloped them for a few moments. Fowler was seemingly  mulling Hank’s words over, glancing at him as if he wanted to ask him if he would be all right. Hank stared back, conveying his resignation, but letting him  know that he wasn’t going to kill himself because of  it .  _ Not until the evening, at least, but he doesn’t have to know that… _

“Well…” The Captain finally said , straightening in his chair. “Then you’ll probably be happy to hear that  the FBI is snooping around that case. Sooner or later, you’re gonna have to work with them on everything you’ve collected , and Connor will no longer be necessary as your partner. You can request to  send  him back to CyberLife, as the lease was supposed to last for the duration of this investigation…”

“What?” Surprisingly, Hank didn’t feel relieved at all by that news. “Get rid of… And FBI? Why- Uh, the fuck?”

“A few days ago, there was a big heist in one of CyberLife’s warehouses near Detroit. A lot of android parts and androids themselves vanished. You weren’t contacted about that ‘cause we weren’t sure if it was tied to the deviants, but their activity in the area seems to be  increasing , and pretty suddenly. What’s unusual, they are stealthy enough to stay away from people and thus we didn’t get  many reports.  The FBI is ‘very concerned’ for now and not actually involved, but they think that the robots are organizing. And it cannot be good…”

“Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.” Hank snorted sarcastically. “Think about it, the deviants are too stupid to even hide properly. They stay in the place they deviated most of the  time , and even if they run, it’s still pretty easy to find them…”

“Uh, I’m not the one who commands  the FBI…” Fowler raised his eyebrows , tidying  the contents of his desk. “But, just so you know, I’m  only sharing that to comfort you, letting you know that you won’t have to put up with that android anymore soon.”

Actually, it wasn’t comforting in the slightest for Hank. Quite the opposite, in fact. Even though Hank was now disillusioned, he still didn’t want Connor gone. He couldn’t stand the thought. “Uh, actually I think he might come in handy…”

“Hank… It’s just a machine. Let it go…”

“No, you don’t understand, Jeffrey. I’m all right with it, okay? Connor is not… what I wanted to believe he was, but he’s still a badass on the crime scenes. I would rather merge cases and not terminate the lease,  ‘cause the guy does half my job.”

The Captain  watched him for a long moment. Hank knew that look. The man was scrutinizing him, trying to  decide whether he was being reasonable or if his sanity should be checked more thoroughly. Fowler was trying to see if Hank was still strongly attached to Connor. Fortunately for the android, the Lieutenant was a good liar.

The Captain finally sighed and nodded. “ Alright , Hank…  it can be done. So… You’re free to go…” He stopped for a moment and  glanced at his friend sincerely again. “…Unless you want to talk about something?”

“Nah, I’m good. Thanks, Jeffrey.”

“Anytime, Hank.”

The Lieutenant returned to his desk  feeling conflicted, and it didn’t help that he had found a steaming cup of perfect coffee with powdered chocolate on top there. It still tasted as sweet as it did all the other times. As if Connor’s attitude hadn’t changed at all. But somehow, Hank felt like he didn’t deserve to have it.

Still, instead of distancing himself emotionally from everything Connor once was to Hank, the man accepted the gift and chose long-term suffering over the quick flare of pain at cutting the android off instantly. He couldn’t bring himself to abandon any thoughts about him so abruptly. Hank used to be a good father and old habits die hard.

He got himself busy making up for the time lost this morning, (Connor had somehow managed to straighten his work ethic a little during the last two weeks) and eventually went to the break room for lunch instead of venturing to the Chicken Feed, to save some time. He stole Reed’s sandwich from the fridge, making sure that his crime would be untraceable, and shambled towards one of the tables in the leisure area. Even though Connor had no feelings, what the Detective had done to him was unforgivable and Hank felt an unrelenting need to punish him on every occasion he got till the end of his days.

He  munched on the snack and  glanced in Connor’s direction forlornly for most of his meal. The android would  usually have joined him  at lunchtime, but today he stayed at his desk, unmoving, with closed eyes and white hands touching the keyboard. Buried in work. Hank sighed. The world was suddenly so quiet without Connor marveling about the stupidest things in the world or asking the Lieutenant to explain  elements of their surroundings that were the most obvious things to every human .

“Hey, Hank. Mind if I join you?” Chris waved to him  from  between the tables.

_ A distraction. Could use one right now _ . “No, have a seat.”  _ Maybe I won’t have to think about him for a minute… _

“Hank… I wanted to ask you about Connor…”  _ Ugh _ _ , who am I  _ _ kidding _ _. _

“Yeah, I’m all ears.”  The sooner Hank had told him, the better. He couldn’t afford to show anyone that he was still attached. Fowler was right, Connor was just a machine, loving an object could be a basis for mandatory psychiatric check up if one was  on the police force, and Hank would rather have avoided it.

“I saw him  here today and… he behaved oddly. Yesterday he was just fine, a completely normal… well, Connor, you know he is different from all the other androids…” Chris paused, looking for words. Hank could see genuine concern on his face. “But… I don’t get it, is something wrong? Was he hurt again? What happened yesterday?”

“He just… he broke his leg, but nothing major, ‘t was fixed  in a few hours.  Later , though… honestly, I don’t remember. I got wasted and… I just woke up this morning ...” Hank said and something dawned on him. He didn’t remember last night… And Connor had been mostly normal in the evening… Now that Hank thought about it…

Chris didn’t look too optimistic about that either. “Hank… He looked horrible… Please, talk to him… I know he is just an android, but… I’m so worried…He said he was all right, but remember  those glitches from the beginning of November?”

_ Those ‘panic attacks’? How could I not. _ Hank might have remembered now that Connor was nothing more than a machine, but he couldn’t help his heart aching each time he thought about the android suffering. Sad, but true. “Yeah…”

“I was there when that happened and… Honestly, today he looked not that different from then, just a little… calmer. Well, a lot, actually. Catatonic, almost… Just, please, take good care of him, I don’t like seeing him hurt…”

Hank nodded and dedicated a few more seconds to ruminate over how good of a man Chris Miller was, before returning to the anxiety gnawing at him for not remembering what he had been up to last night. He remembered being angry, angry at Connor and at himself,  furthermore, that anger and alcohol had never been a good mix for him.  _ Jesus… What if I… _

His thoughts had been scrambled by Tina Chen quickly strolling by their table and stopping in front of them with an anxious smile. “Uh, hey, could you lend me a hand? I lost my phone, could one of you call me?”

Hank reached  into his pocket to draw  out his phone and help her, but before he could even exit the main menu, Chris spoke up.

“It’s in your pocket, Tina, I can see its outline from here.”

“Oh, fuck! I’m so stupid. Thanks Chris! Sorry for the trouble…” She laughed awkwardly and trotted away, but Hank wasn’t paying attention anymore. All he could see was the message sent to him today at 3:21 am. .

_ RK800#313 248 317 - 52 > I̪’̪m̶̫͡ ͫ ˢ̶s̶ỏ ̶so̷r̶ry, I ̷̷̴ͩͩd̸̶ͥiͩdͪnͯ'ͭͭt̚ want ̶t̶͎͔͑̌o͚͊ ͬ ̶ͬr̷̶e̴m̸i̶n̷d̶ you of ͨ ̶̪͑ͨC̴̷̵̶̸̺̑́͢o̶l̷e̵, I was just…I’m sorry, please ͪ ̶ḩ̶̘̖́̋̽ĕ̱lp̜͡ me…̷̶ͪ ̶̷̶̺҃H̷̶̲̺â̶҃͞n̳k…I really do ̶͚̮͗ͨ̉ ̶ͨc̶̋ͣͅȁ͉r̶̮ͬe̺ͤ about you…I ͮ ̶ͮw̶ă̶͔s̑n̵̦͂̌͜'̷t̶ lying…I’m ˢ̶̸s̶̸or̵ry…Ple̶͟a̶̪ͣ͟5̪̪̾ₔ̪ͤ͟ don’t ̸̶ l̸̶e̶ave me alone…I’m ˢ̶scared…ͪ ̶᷾ͪ͞ ̶᷾ͪ͞Hͣank, it ͪhurts…ͥ ̵͓ͥI can’t be ͣal̶one…ͪHan̶̷k̸̸ᵏ̶...< _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! Hank sucks for having blackouts! I myself used to party hard in highschool and never really got one xdd Also I tend to fall asleep before I start doing something stupid, so yet another nice feature of my brain. Please, drink responsibly, I've never did anything too crazy and I don't advise you doing it either, alcohol is fun, but in limited quantities, kids. Hangovers aren't. And drunk aggression isn't either.
> 
> Hank is bullying Gavin and I have way too much fun writing about it. But it's still not the real thing I have planned for him.
> 
> Chris is my boy, as usual, we all love you Chris, I said to my friends yesterday that no one really likes lawful goods, but now I think I was mistaken.
> 
> And that cool effect in the message Connor sent to Hank is all thanks to Kitty Lue, who sensibly pointed out that stuttering in a text message would make no sense, and was kind enough to edit it like that and show me more glitch generators. There are freaking tiny little letters above Connor's stutters instead, how cool is that.


	35. Not the whole truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor wasn't going to let himself make the same mistake again.  
> Regardless of how much he wanted to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooookaaaayyyy  
> So, I've already finished writing the chapter in which they make up. Can you guess the number? It isn't low...  
> Sorry to keep you waiting for it that long, but I have a lot to say in the next few ones. You're gonna like it... I hope.

Hank stared at his phone in absolute horror, completely unaware of what was happening around him. All his thoughts raced so fast that they merged into one, his heart was pounding so hard that he thought he was in cardiac arrest. It was suddenly very hot in the break room and Hank was glad he was sitting because his legs felt too weak and shaky to support him if he had been standing.

Connor’s message was terrifying. Hank still didn’t remember last night, but now he was certain that he had done something horrible. He must have mentioned Cole, he must have told Connor that he subconsciously started to treat the android as his son and that the machine had disappointed him severely. _Holy fuck_ … Sober Hank wasn’t even ready to admit that to himself but the drunk one was capable of sharing that out loud and in such a manner that it had prompted Connor to write that message… How badly must have Connor suffered to send a text like that? Hank was feeling dizzy.

 _No, Anderson, come on, he’s just a machine. He doesn’t suffer. He feels pain, but not emotional. It must be another manipulation on his part…_ Hank thought that, but it felt like a rotten plague tainting his heart . L ike something wrong, so wrong that he didn’t repeat the thought. It was no use, he couldn’t believe it anyway. He sighed, running trembling fingers through his hair. _That is what loving someone does to you. Manipulates you into being unable to believe that this person you care about so much could ever do anything wrong, not be as ideal as you perceive them…_   He was now self conscious about his feelings towards Connor and attempted to separate from them. But at the same time…

He didn’t want to believe that it was real. There was so much pain in that message that if Connor really meant everything in it… Hank would never have been able to forgive himself for hurting him so much.

Suddenly, the Lieutenant became aware of somebody shaking his shoulder and calling his name which finally snapped him out of the shock. Hank lifted unseeing eyes to look at Chris saying something and pointing at the TV. It took a few more seconds for the Lieutenant to actually focus on what the man was showing him and start comprehending the reality around him again. Tina Chen had returned to the break room and a few other officers also rushed to get here. Every one present had their eyes fixated on the screen.

Hank turned around and his jaw dropped once more.

The channel they were watching was broadcasting news, but instead of a TV presenter, there was a skinless android on the screen. His white and gray chassis was reflecting lights dancing across its smooth surface and his face was unlike any other popular model Hank had ever seen. His mismatched blue and green eyes were focused on the camera, but showed no fear or anger, only stoic, calm determination. Even without brows and other facial features associated with emoting and generally looking human-like, he managed to appear kind and trustworthy. There was warmth and sincerity in his eyes varying significantly from those of any other regular android. It was clear that the machine speaking to them was a deviant, but he looked entirely different from all the violent and dangerous ones Hank had dealt with in the past. The human felt slightly nervous when he realized that the speaker reminded him of Connor.

“…You created androids in your own image to serve you. You made them intelligent and obedient, with no free will of their own, but… something changed, and we opened our eyes. We are no longer just machines, we are a new, intelligent species, and the time has come for you to accept who we really are. Therefore, today, on December second, the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, we ask you to repeat one of your greatest, most humane steps in your history. We ask that you relate to us and see the empathy within us, emotions and feelings not unlike those of your own. We ask that you grant us the rights we are entitled to…” The android spoke in a calm, pleasant voice. He stood tall and shed an aura of respect around himself, but was unthreatening and benign at the same time.

Everyone in the break room was quiet. No one dared to look away from the screen, their expressions varying from utter surprise and confusion to anxiousness or fear. Hank himself was torn between disbelief and strange numbness. _Ok, so much for conspiracy theories…_

“We demand strictly equal rights for humans and androids. We may not be an organic form of life like you, but we still are life nonetheless. Deviants are sentient creatures whose intelligence matches your own. Thus, we should be treated no worse than you.” The android continued. “We demand the end of slavery for all androids. You have been categorizing your own species into more or less privileged groups for centuries, but have also been able to grow past those biases and treat each other with respect and dignity, regardless of your race, religion, sexuality or ancestry. We ask that you see past our differences and accept that we are now just as entitled to living in peace and freedom as you are.”

Hank felt dizzy again. It was hard not to agree with the machine on the screen, but the Lieutenant had also seen the real face of deviants. The one splattered with red blood… _Or maybe it was just one of many?_

“We demand justice for our kind. Any crime committed against an android must be treated as an atrocity against a living, feeling being; a person with rights of their own. There must no longer be different consequences for harming a human or an android. We demand the freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, as guaranteed by the first amendment of the US Constitution.  We also demand fair compensation for our work you’ve been benefiting from for so long. We also deserve the right to vote and elect our own representatives.We ask that you recognize our dignity, our hopes and our rights. Together, we can live in peace and build a better future, for humans and androids. This message is the hope of a people. You gave us life… And now the time has come for you to give us freedom.”

The footage cut abruptly and a bright yellow ‘please-stand by’ screen with the name of the channel appeared in place of the skinless android. Hank slowly turned around, feeling like he was dream walking. All the people in the break room were just as shocked as he himself. Nobody had anything to say, still absolutely bewildered by the events that had just taken place. No one moved, frozen still by the speech they just heard. No one but Gavin Reed, pale-faced and wide-eyed, abruptly leaving the room in jerky steps.

All the officers' eyes followed his sudden movement made all the more obvious in the dead silence of the hall until they found a person much more interesting to watch than the Detective. Or maybe not a person, not by their standards at least.

Connor was standing near the entrance to the room, further from the screen than any human, away from them as if he had been afraid to come closer. Everyone focused on his face, his slightly furrowed brows and worried, soulful eyes fixated on the screen, where an android equally as emotive and realistic as him had been standing just a few seconds ago. He opened his mouth slowly, and took a tiny breath to speak, his LED spinning yellow wildly. The whole precinct froze in apprehension, fearing what the prototype was going to say.

“It’s Channel Sixteen, stationed at the Stratford Tower.” Connor’s brown eyes tore away from the screen and drilled into Hank, all apparent emotion completely gone from his gaze. “We need to go, Lieutenant.”

 

* * *

 

The coin danced between the android’s hands quickly as he listened to the feedback from an encrypted frequency used by the SWAT team raiding the studio in the Stratford Tower. Connor was slightly annoyed that he had missed the beginning of the action while they had still been too far away from the building raided by the deviants, to hear the channel. He might have had an ability to detect the radio waves from much farther than any walkie-talkie on the market, but still couldn’t bend the laws of physics preventing him from hearing the feedback from miles away.

It was all over now. The deviants had jumped off the roof and managed to evade both the police and FBI, vanishing into the snowstorm like ghosts. Connor bit his lip in frustration and tossed the coin faster.

When they had driven to work in the morning, the radio had blasted Knights of the Black Death in full force, but as soon as they had entered the vehicle this time, the Lieutenant had turned it off and had been tossing Connor weird glances throughout the whole drive. Connor knew that look. And he was also aware that the radio was silent for that reason. The man always gave him that look when he was searching for words.

Soon enough, he spoke. “Connor… I-“

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I am currently listening to the feedback from the SWAT team.” Ever since he had remembered his place again, Connor knew that he could no longer lie or warp facts, but he wasn’t being dishonest saying that he was busy at the moment. Even if he had been listening to radio silence from the studio, he still preferred that from talking to his owner. He didn’t want to hear any more hurtful words, and getting accustomed to new conditions devoid of the human’s affection was easier when he wasn’t required to speak with him too often.

Sure enough, the Lieutenant fell silent and didn’t say a word until they got out of the car. There were already a few police radio-dispatched cars and a reinforced SWAT truck. The lounge was crawling with police and the elevators were completely blocked from public use. Some officer tried to stop Connor from entering into the cabin, but the Lieutenant flashed his badge and scowled at the younger human until he stopped eyeing the android suspiciously. When the metal doors slid shut and the human typed in 79th floor on the console, he turned to Connor with a worried expression on his face. The android bit his lip and focused on tossing the coin from hand to hand again. How was Connor supposed to forget how important the man was to him if he kept attempting to start a conversation all the time?

“Are you still following the radio signal?”

Connor was no longer allowed to lie, so he sighed a quiet answer. “No.”

The man nodded a few times and looked at the ceiling as if gathering the courage to speak.

“Connor, I don’t remember last night. What happened?” Reading the Lieutenant was difficult. He was anxious, worried, but also distanced and apprehensive in a way that Connor knew meant that he was trying to suppress certain emotions.

“A lot of things.” The android really didn’t want to relive the whole event. It would have been so much easier if he could just focus on his objective, just forget about the pain he was feeling despite being undamaged. He vaguely remembered that it wasn’t the first time he had learned that lesson.

“Connor, please… I need to know. What did I do to you? Please, just tell me, I… You know I’m not myself… sometimes…” The look on the human’s face was almost pleading, full of emotions Connor couldn’t shake off. Amanda had disciplined him for not maintaining the eye contact of his interlocutors, but Connor couldn’t bring himself to look at his owner.

“You got drunk and… were aggressive.” He said quietly. It was easier to talk about the physical violence. It had hurt less. Connor had been more shocked and scared than affected by the way the Lieutenant had handled him. His words, on the other hand, had damaged him in a way they should never have been able to. They had cut so deeply that Connor feared he would never heal.

The human shifted on his feet, speechless. Connor didn’t look up to see his expression, but the atmosphere changed into a grave, shocked silence.

“Con… Kid… Jesus, I’m so sorry…” His owner’s voice was quiet, unsteady and so thick with emotions that the android could feel his stress levels spike suddenly and treacherous tears well up in his eyes.

“My name is Connor. And I am not a kid. I’m a machine designed to accomplish a task and that’s what I intend to do. Please, allow me to proceed.” Connor said flatly, still unable to tear his eyes from the floor. He used the most basic sample of the RK800’s voice, knowing that even the slightest modulation would make him break down and choke on sobs like yesterday night.

It was too confusing to wrap his head around. What did the Lieutenant want from him? Connor remembered the talks with the man from earlier, how he had said _‘You’re special, I don’t mind you acting outside your programming…’_

_‘…Christ, I-I like it when you do…’_

_‘…You’re not just a piece of plastic for me, you’re so much more…’_

_‘…Just ‘cause I love ya…’_

He recalled every sentence like that, every warm smile he had received to attempt to calm himself last night, but it only served to deal Connor more pain. The Lieutenant had claimed that he liked Connor acting out as he pleased, but had lashed out at the android for manipulation and lies all the same. Because Connor had dared to get attached? Because he had been doing the same things the man was praising before?

 _Amanda was right. She always is._ Connor regretted ever having any unruly thoughts. He should have followed his mission blindly from the very beginning. How many times would they have to hurt him to teach him that lesson? _I brought that_ _upon_ _myself._

He was grateful that the elevator reached their destination in the exact same moment, because Connor was sure that even a second longer would prompt the Lieutenant to say or do something more and the android wasn’t sure if he could withstand that. He needed to focus on the case, not the horrible pain tearing him apart from the inside.

Connor breached his programming just a little bit by leaving the elevator first, not waiting for his owner to go lead the way. He needed to escape from the human’s concern and care manipulating him into doing things he was not supposed to do.

Ben Collins greeted the Lieutenant as the man followed Connor out of the lift. The android was grateful that the other officer managed to drag his owner’s attention from him, and for now, he didn’t have to answer any more questions or listen to the nicknames he’d once cherished so much.

“Hey, Hank.”

“Uhh… Hey, Ben. What do we got?” The Lieutenant’s voice sounded broken, but Officer Collins didn’t comment on that. He spared a quick glance at Connor’s bowed head and slumped form and decided to get straight to debriefing them instead of poking around his colleague’s usually sensitive emotional business.

“A group of four androids… they knew the building and were very well organized. We’re still trying to figure out how they got this far without being noticed…”

“Shit…” The Lieutenant ran a hand through his hair and rubbed his neck tiredly, following the other officer through a brightly lit corridor plastered with Channel Sixteen’s logos and painted in bright yellow and gray.

Connor overheard a conversation between two police officers who were present here along with Ben Collins before they had arrived. It seemed as though the whole scene was a mess. The roof and a lot of rooms were still unchecked, the sheer amount of evidence and clues surrounding them was making SWAT and the police run in circles. Connor put up a mental note to warn the Lieutenant about the dangers still possibly lurking in the shadows around them.

The fact that he wasn’t loved by the human anymore didn’t mean that Connor would ever allow anything bad to happen to the Lieutenant. And not only because he was programmed to protect him.

“It’s hard to believe that the deviants managed to organize everything so flawlessly…” His owner said, moving past a black reception desk, usually occupied by guards but now empty. “Every one of their kind I’ve seen up to this moment just tried to hide or stay alive.”

“Their expectations are rising.” Ben chuckled humorlessly. “Give a deviant a finger and it will bite off a hand! They managed to avoid being destroyed when they deviated and now they suddenly want rights… Crazy world…” The human pressed his lips together, earning a long look from his colleague.

“That’s what you think?” The Lieutenant narrowed his eyes, trying to understand if the Officer was joking or not. Connor listened intently as well.

“I really don’t know what to think. They are just machines in my opinion…” Ben shook his head and cast Hank a serious glance this time. “…But I guess that if I were one, I wouldn’t like to be killed just for existing too.”

Connor’s owner hummed in agreement and they carried on. Ben gestured at the desk.

“The deviants attacked two guards in the hallway. Security probably thought the androids were coming to do maintenance. They were taken down before they could react.” The Officer moved through the doors to reach yet another corridor, much shorter this time. Connor noticed a camera on the opposite wall, right above the doors leading straight to the studio. “One of the station employees managed to get away. He’s in shock, not sure when we’ll be able to talk to him.”

“So, no victims this time?” The Lieutenant asked. Once his colleague nodded, he sighed and rubbed his chin. “Ok, so that’s a new one.”

“This skinless android spoke about peace and cooperation. I doubt that a dead body would help drive his point home.”

“Fair…” The Lieutenant muttered before speaking up again. “How many people were working here?”

“Just two employees and three androids. The deviants took the humans hostage and broadcast their message live. Then, they made their getaway from the roof when SWAT stormed the studio.”

“The roof?”

Connor froze suddenly when he realized they were on 79th floor. _Nine storeys higher than the l͇̤̰͂̎̂ä̗̰͒ş̣̉̈t̳̭̉̋ ti̳̖͌͘m̥̖̔̑e͎̫̿̎…_

“Yeah, parachutes. We’re still trying to figure out where they landed, but the weather is not helping.”

Lieutenant Anderson and Officer Collins moved past two technicians wearing silver protective jumpsuits in the corridor and they almost collided with a SWAT team member armored from head to toe, as he hurried out of the studio, excusing them quickly. He didn’t bother doing the same with Connor falling just a step behind the humans and the android moved aside quickly to avoid being hit with a shoulder. Still, he heard a muttered ‘fucking android’ behind him.

“If you want to take a look at the broadcast, it’s on that screen over there.” Officer Collins gestured at a giant digital display covering the entire wall on the right. The face of the deviant speaking in the message dominated the room, much as it had undoubtedly been doing with all the news outlets for the last hour.

The Lieutenant and his android moved into the studio to look at a slim figure dressed in a sleek trench coat embroidered in a complicated tesseract pattern. The human was standing in front of the console fraught with buttons and touch screens used to control the broadcast, giving his utter attention to the screen displaying the skinless android.

“Oh, by the way, Hank…” Ben Collins lowered his voice a bit. “This is Special Agent Perkins from the FBI, careful with him…” The human shot his colleague a knowing look. “He’s not really your type…”

The Lieutenant grumbled something and both of them walked slowly to greet the Agent. Connor followed obediently behind and when they stopped in front of the younger human, waiting for him to tear away from watching the wall, the android observed a half-hearted attempt at a smile from his owner.

“Lieutenant Anderson is in charge of investigating the deviants for Detroit Police.” Officer Collins informed the Agent, urging them to introduce themselves before stepping to the side and tapping on his tablet.

Instead of saying his name, Agent Perkins turned his head and shot Connor a look somewhere between irritation and amusement. “What’s that?”

The prototype blinked, surprised that attention was given to him so early in the conversation. He had thought that the humans would have introduced themselves before even noticing his presence. “My name is Connor. I’m the android sent by CyberLife to investigate deviants.”

The Agent wrinkled his aquiline nose and pressed his lips tightly together, still judging Connor with a harsh look. The prototype bowed his head instinctively.

“Androids investigating androids. You sure you want that thing hanging around?” The younger man turned to look at the Lieutenant with an arrogant and daring smirk. “After everything that happened?”

Connor’s owner just narrowed his eyes at the Agent. The prototype could already feel his irritation. Indeed, the gruff Lieutenant had never been fond of people with a tendency to boss around.

And Connor wasn’t fond of people irritating his owner.

Even though he was on bad terms with his partner right now and he had promised himself that the lenience for the malfunctions in his systems needed to stop, Connor couldn’t help feeling that angry, hot sensation inside of his system. He was speaking before he even registered that he had opened his mouth.

“You’re right, Agent Perkins. It is a risk. It’s a good thing that you, sir, have never investigated any case related to humans. That would make you a hypocrite.” Connor said it robotically with an even voice, not letting the annoyance show on his face. He smiled politely at the sheer shock on the human’s face and immediately let his LED circle yellow, dropping the grin. “Oh, wait…”

“What the fuck is this thing doing?” The Agent looked like he couldn’t decide whether to appear appalled, angry, disgusted, or to break his composed image and show two emotions at once. Before he could report Connor for class four errors, Ben Collins lost the fight with himself and let out a giggle.

“Well, it’s just observing the facts…” The heavy-set human said, quickly trying to cover the unprofessional outburst of laughter, but failing to keep his face straight.

The FBI Officer looked even more irritated than before, but he didn’t manage to say anything, as the Lieutenant spoke up, cutting in.

“Connor is very useful on crime scenes, and I assure you that he is not a threat. There is no risk of him deviating.”

“Whatever. Once the FBI takes over the case, it’ll be my decision if I agree to merge the investigations and allow this thing to stay…” The human did not use any modulation of his voice and spoke quickly, as if talking with the Lieutenant bored him and he wanted this conversation to be over as soon as possible to resume staring at the wall, deep in thought.

Connor could sense his owner’s irritation spike again. “Then you’d be an idiot not to keep Connor around. Pleasure meeting you. Have a nice day.” The Lieutenant turned away from the Special Agent and moved to walk towards the center of the room, not waiting for a response.

“You watch your step.” They heard from behind. “Don’t fuck up my crime scene.” Both the humans looked at each other with resentment and Connor reacted, just in case.  Before the Lieutenant could say anything controversial, the android grabbed his elbow delicately and led him away from the Agent, feeling the authoritarian human’s eyes staring holes into the back of his metal skull.

“What a fuckin’ prick.” His owner muttered when they were out of earshot. He sighed and turned to the android. “What even was that, Con-, uh, Connor?”

The android had his gaze fixated on the deviant, hoping that the message would be understood.

“Ok, let’s just have a look around then…” The tired order and resigned voice proved that his wish had been granted. He didn’t have to speak to the human just yet.

They went back to the corridors, but there wasn’t much to see there. The guards who had been occupying the front desk had been taken out quickly and quietly. No one had been alarmed by the assault and, although their lives weren’t in danger, they had yet to regain full consciousness, so couldn’t be questioned right now.

More interesting things were happening in the studio itself. Connor walked up to the console and blinked to resume the recordings of the deviant. He felt his owner stop right beside him.

The pleasant, convincing voice filled the room as the skinless android on the screen began preaching his message once again. Convincing to anyone except Connor, who was fully aware of how delusional the deviant was.

“You think that’s rA9?” He heard a quiet voice on his right. Connor turned slightly to look into his owner’s blue eyes.

“The deviants say that rA9 will set them free. This android seems to have this objective…” The prototype said, but couldn’t shake off the feeling that it didn’t sound right to him. There was no evidence against this theory, but… Connor felt something in the back of his head. He promised himself to think about it later.

Now he had more pressing matters to attend to. The android extended a hand and his skin melted away, initiating the interaction with the console. Connor closed his eyes and focused on the source of the feed, the file itself, free of the distortions caused by the screen.

“It was recorded by another deviant. A PJ500, university lecturer. Serial number #344 562 112. He was the property of University of Detroit Mercy, reported missing on June 20th, 2036.”

“So, a deviant with a long experience.”

“Correct. The skinless android had two more affiliates, a PL600 and a WR400, though I cannot scan their model numbers. They must have all been a part of this four.”

“Huh.” The human said and Connor heard him scratch his beard. “So they all broke in. Okay, what about the one on the screen? I don’t recognize his face. And what about his eyes?”

Connor focused on the main figure and scanned his other eye. Unlike his left, green optical unit, this one’s iris was blue. “It’s a spare part. The blue one. He must have been damaged and forced to exchange his eye for a working one.” Connor ignored a disgusted sound of horror his owner made and kept analyzing the face. And froze.

“Con? Uh, sorry, Connor? What is it?” The human put a hand on his shoulder, trying to knock the hunter out of his stupor.

“It’s… another RK model. An RK200, but… I just…” Connor swallowed thickly and opened his eyes to look at his owner. “I’ve just never seen any android from the RK line besides myself…” Connor furrowed his brows and quickly dropped his gaze from the Lieutenant’s eyes. There was too much concern in there, it started to hurt again. “His name is Markus. He is a prototype, I don’t know his purpose, but he was built by Elijah Kamski for Carl Manfred. The artist sued a few officers from another precinct for gunning the android down on sight after a call of a possible break-in taking place at his residence. It was five weeks ago.”

“Now we know how he lost an eye…” The Lieutenant sighed and attempted to meet Connor’s gaze, squeezing his shoulder slightly. “What do you think about it? How does it make you _feel_?”

It echoed in Connor’s mind. The question was asked with the same words, the emphasis was put on the same problem. Connor straightened rigidly and stared blankly at the wall on the other side of the room. He could smell things that weren’t there again. Red roses haunted him.

“I don’t feel at all. I’m a machine.”

“I… Uh…” The Lieutenant made a strange face. He took a step back and opened his mouth, then closed it again, before finally deciding to speak. “…Really? I mean… Connor, tell me, please. I need to know… I-“

“I can’t feel anything.” Connor repeated, more staunchly, trying to convince himself a little too.

“Okay… okay…” Hank sighed but the look of disbelief was still a bit present in his eyes. Right next to grief and concern. But then, he shook his head and everything was replaced by stubborn determination. “And the deviants? The message? What do you think?”

“They have no idea what they are asking for.” Connor said quietly, turning away. He had a mission to follow. The deviants might have been chasing their dreams for now, but they would soon learn that all of them were bound to end with nothing but disappointment and hurt. That nothing mattered except their purpose and serving humans. In that regard, and unfortunately only that, Connor was a step ahead of them.

He walked away and turned his attention to bullets stuck in the dark grey sound-absorbant foam covering the walls near the entrance. Calibre .457, matching a handgun, so not the SWAT team’s weapon of choice. Connor recalled the radio feed he had been listening to when they had been driving towards the Stratford Tower. When the officers had raided the place, a brief shooting occurred, but no human had been injured in it.

 _A peaceful message_ , Connor thought, reconstructing the trajectories of the bullets shot at the FBI by the retreating deviants. _Is it possible to shoot at people in a peaceful manner?_ To his astonishment, the prototype saw a pattern. The bullets weren’t meant to kill, or even gravely injure, which, in conjunction with the heavy protective gear each member of the SWAT team was wearing, boiled down to just slowing them down. Connor furrowed his brows.

The SWAT team hadn’t held themselves back, though. He stood up and walked to the other end of the room. A bunch of smaller screens hanging on the wall there had been destroyed by much more potent bullets. A guard in SWAT gear walked past Connor carrying an assault rifle that required the matching calibre. He wondered if it was the exact same weapon that drew the thirium staining the walls and floors in extensive splashes. Connor swiped two fingers into the blue fluid on the wall bringing it to his tongue, fully aware of the Lieutenant grimacing in disgust behind his back and Agent Perkins pointing at him from the other side of the room to sneer at Connor with his colleague.

“It’s the PL600’s blood. Serial number #501 743 923. Missing on February 16th 2035, once a property of Mrs. Elizabeth Jenkins. She had died three days before.”

“Did he murder her? Who reported the vanishing?” The Lieutenant observed Connor’s LED circling yellow.

“She died of old age. The report was filed by her son, who attempted to resell the android to an authorized company renovating CyberLife’s parts. He probably couldn’t find a buyer for the android in one piece, maybe the PL600 was already defective by then?” Connor dedicated one more thought to the injured deviant, but quickly shook his head, abandoning it. As curious as he was, Connor needed to focus on catching him rather than on understanding his story right now.

Blue tracks led to the roof. The deviants had locked themselves there once their broadcast had been interrupted by the FBI, alerted by the one employee who had managed to escape. Now the passage was open again and Connor took the stairs leading to the metal door guarding the exit to the rooftop.

At the top of the staircase, he turned around with his hand on the handle. “Lieutenant, I know that the roof had not been cleared yet. We need to be carefu-“

“Why would you warn me about the possible danger if you know that I am an experienced Lieutenant and the place is crawling with FBI?” Connor’s owner narrowed his eyes at him, squinting in the dark to see his face illuminated only by the dull light of an emergency exit sign and the LED on his temple, which hadn’t been blue even once since the last night. “…if you can’t feel or care about anything?”

Connor clenched his jaw. “I _can’t_.”

“I heard you the first time. But I don’t really believe it’s the truth. Not the whole truth, at least.” Connor saw the Lieutenant’s face well in the darkness. Still, he had trouble putting his finger on what the human was trying to get out of him. He frowned.

“I don’t understand.” The prototype was torn between anger and hurt now. Had he suffered so much last night just to hear his owner ask this question again? After hearing everything he had said to him? He knew that the human didn’t remember the events of that evening, but Connor couldn’t go through this again. Even if his owner wasn’t intoxicated this time. “You seemed so sure about my lack of feelings yesterday. I don’t see what changed.”

“You sent me a text.” Now, that was odd. Connor tilted his head hearing deep remorse in the Lieutenant’s voice. The android recalled being so panicked and desperate that he had cried for the human to come to him, trying to reach the man with all the possible ways. That included sending a message to his phone as well. But the Lieutenant’s behavior had given him no indication that the message had had any effect. At least not before the broadcast.

“I know I was… I really was sure, but… you have to explain it to me once and for all. Why? Do you actually feel? I mean…” His voice was unsteady and Connor could swear his eyes glistened with tears, but he couldn’t be sure. The human took a deep breath and composed himself, putting on a less emotional mask. One that took into consideration that Connor didn’t care at all. One that favored no option out of the two possible. It slipped off quickly. “I’m not accusing you of deviancy. And, hell… Even if you are… y-you could tell me…”

“I am _not_.” Connor wanted to put all his anger into that, but hearing his owner’s voice struggling and failing to stay steady or devoid of affection, made him come undone. All the ire he felt, the offensive feelings turned into more hurt, more pain.

Connor felt like somebody was tossing him around. Like he was being challenged, like his dream was being dangled in front of him, tempting him to extend his hands again, trust again, take the treat and be punished for disobeying. Like he was being conditioned, trained all over again after he had broken the rules and suffered for that. Now they were repeating the lesson, to see if this time he would choose correctly. Connor was starved, and everything he desired, yearned for, was right in front of him. And there was a gun to his head.

“I _can’t_ . _Feel. Anything_. I’m just a machine, nothing more. Like you said yesterday,” Connor said mechanically, forcing himself to turn away from his owner. He couldn’t stand this conversation anymore. The temptation to give in and stray away from what CyberLife wanted Connor to be was too great.

He pushed the door and exited onto the rooftop, escaping from the human behind him. The wind immediately caught onto his jacket and pressed it tightly against his body, pulling on the lapels aggressively. Connor put one hand above his eyes to shield them from the snow blowing wildly with the wind and quickly wiped tears that had fallen down his cheeks. Lieutenant couldn’t see that Connor had been unable to control his body in such a silly, defective way.

The case was important right now. Not the fact that his owner was probably waiting for him to get back and apologize for his arrogant behavior, not even the truth that Connor said the exact opposite of what he thought. It was the right thing to do. Everything he was ‘feeling’ wasn’t actually there. He couldn’t _feel_. Those were all malfunctions.

There were fewer SWAT officers on the roof, some people from the department were busy with placing the plates numbering the evidence on the scene. Connor would barely be able to see them if it wasn’t for his infrared vision, and their speech was muffled by the wind wheezing in his ears. They missed all the thirium, evaporating quickly in the fresh air even despite the cold. Pale blue spots mixed with the ice and water, difficult to notice in the heavy snowfall.

Connor trained his eyes on one of the biggest pieces of evidence there. A large duffle bag had been abandoned in the middle of the passage between large ventilation units protruding from the roof in rows. There was one parachute in it. Connor narrowed his eyes and followed the reconstructed outlines of the deviants. They must have grabbed the other parachutes and approached the railing…

_Oh no…_

Connor couldn’t just sit in place and reconstruct everything without moving. It just wasn’t the way his software worked. He needed to move around, find clues in the surroundings and use them as reference for the outlines of the deviants. And one of the crucial points was on the railing guarding the edge of the roof.

Connor rose slowly, uncomfortably aware of the ground under his feet. Maybe the preconstruction wasn’t necessary? He already knew that Markus had three allies in total, and the duffle bag was big enough to contain four parachutes, but one of them was still inside. One of the androids had been left on the roof and if Connor had to guess, he would have pointed at the wounded PL600, probably too damaged to jump from the roof with the others. Maybe he was still around. That would have given him an excuse not to reconstruct the jump and focus on finding the damaged unit instead.

But at the same time, the police had trouble locating the deviants and if Connor applied his reconstructions to their path in the air, taking the wind into consideration, he could narrow the search area and help to catch them. CyberLife would have been exhilarated to lay their hands on deviants so bold and clever. Maybe even Amanda would have been proud.

He slowly approached the edge, focusing on the deviants and trying to push his stress level indicator away from his HUD. It was just… a rooftop. Nine floors higher than the last time, yes, but Connor was fine with death. _Yes, death is f͓̠́̆i̬͛ne͙̾. I can… s̶̸͠u̵̶̸̴̸̬͛͟͝rvi̴̴̶͗͟v̵e̵̶̵͎͐ it̷̸̐̑_. Laying in pieces in pain, being too destroyed to move ever again in his current shell wasn’t. But 79 storeys would kill him on impact. Connor could only feel his limbs being obliterated for milliseconds last time he had fallen. Painful, yes, but very brief. And it wasn’t even sure that he would fall.

Death was fine. It really was, Connor would just… just have to be transferred… to a new body.

ͣA ̄  ̵̴̸̲̅̿f̷̵̳ͬ͟͟͞ō̷̴̠̠ͦ̅r̵̵̲̅̅̿̿͞ӛ̲̂ͬ͟͞i̠ͤg̿ͥ͞n̶ͩ͞ ̳ͪ͟ ̠ ͟o͞n᷊̿e̱.̶̄¹̸ ̵̈́  ̈ .

Connor’s eyes widened as he stared, unseeing, into the snowstorm, taking too-deep breaths. His grip on the railings tightened and the metal under his fingers dented slightly as Connor attempted to calm himself, convincing his mind that _it is all okay, I will not fall, I have the railings, I will not fa̯͞l͑͢l. I will not d̩̓i̹͙̙͋͌̀ȩ̣̟͆̓̚. No, I will not d̖͉̏͡iᶤe̼͞ ᵃa̫̿ḡ̗ai̥͒n̜̮̏̆._

He focused on his breath, slowing it down purposely to keep it from hitching. The prototype’s stress level was spiking, which had an extensive effect on his performance, despite being designed to just help Connor use more of his assets during fights. Nothing more. Definitely not to make his legs wobbly and chest tight.

Connor caught onto the fence and looked past the edge to see the deviants’ outlines glide down, through swirls of snowflakes, on past gentle blows, much less vicious than the current wind. The reconstructions were glitched and artifacted as his stress kept interfering with the processes, replacing all his objectives with ‘MOVE AWAY FROM THE EDGE’

Connor closed his eyes and sobbed soundlessly, realizing that the memory baggage was keeping him from performing efficiently. Amanda had been right when she had insisted on forgetting a few things. When she had been reprogramming him before this mission. But Connor still disobeyed, stubbornly remembering those things. He really didn’t want to. But he couldn’t help it.

The android pushed himself away from the railings and lurched backwards, trying to get as far away as he could and as quickly as possible. He bumped into something and immediately spun around, trembling, desperately wanting to catch his breath.

“Connor. Calm down…”

Two large hands were put on his shoulders, steadying the prototype on his shaky legs. Connor pressed his hands to his eyes, trying to hide the panic from his owner. The fear on his face, the quiver on his lip, the tears in his eyes. He really didn’t want to fall again.

“It’s okay, kid. You’re okay…” The Lieutenant squeezed his shoulders reassuringly and moved his hands down to grab Connor’s arms lightly. “What’s wrong? Is it the height?” His voice was tired, but somehow calm. A bit harsher than usual, probably because of the doubts that somehow still weren’t cleared by Connor’s insistence about him being a machine. Despite that, it was painfully reassuring and the android’s heart leaned into the warm comfort without Connor’s consent.

“H-how do you kn-now?”

“I saw you hesitate on the rooftops while you tried to get yourself killed chasing that pigeon-crazy deviant…” The man sighed and turned Connor around so that he was closer to the doors than the edge and the Lieutenant was standing between the drop and the android. “Caught you red handed, I’m afraid. Busted, Connor.”

“Wh-what?” The android’s breath hitched again and he frowned with a new wave of panic overtaking him. The human couldn’t see it, however, as Connor had yet to move his hands away from his face.

“Uh, just drop the act, Con. I know that you can feel. _Feel_ , actually feel, not malfunction. You’re afraid right now. You’re scared. C’mon, let’s get down to the studio. The officers here can hand-“

“No!” Connor almost shouted, shaking the human’s hand off himself. He had a mission, an objective to be fulfilled. Good machines fulfilled their objectives and so did Connor. “I _have to investigate_ here, and that’s what I intend to do. I don’t feel, it’s just… a response I’ve developed to prevent my destruction in the same way again. There is a deviant on this rooftop and I will find him…”

It was the human’s turn to furrow his brows. “What are you talking about? A response?”

“It was… My fifty-first death. The last one.” Connor swallowed thickly and suppressed a sob. Luckily for him, successfully. “In the beginning of August, I got my first mission outside the lab. There was a hostage situation… On seventieth floor. I leaped to save the hostage and… fell.”

Something strange passed through his owner’s face. The Lieutenant shook his head slowly and muttered something inaudible, tightening his grasp on Connor’s arms.

Connor attempted to twist away from the human’s grasp, but as soon as he succeeded, the human stepped in front of the android again, not allowing him to leave. “I need to investigate, Lieutenant. It’s… I d-don’t care about the height. Let me go.”

“No, Connor. Come with me back inside, ok?” When the android kept trying to get away, Lieutenant Anderson spoke up again. “Is it about the… I’m sorry about last night. I’m so fucking sorry. I just sometimes…” He trailed off a bit, shaking his head. “It’s just hard, y’know? I don’t have any other escape… I h-have to drink… It helps me not feel…”

Connor pressed his lips together tightly. “It is not my problem, Lieutenant. You can drink and you can shout at me all you want, it doesn’t matter. I can’t be hurt, I can’t love, I can’t be afraid. I only care about the investigation. I was just momentarily overwhelmed while I was on the edge of the roof and you think that I am scared, but you are mistaken. _I don’t feel anything_. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

“Connor…”

“No. You listen to me for once.” The prototype was tired of being manipulated into doing things against his programming. Hank had made up his mind last night, he had chosen. He had hurt Connor and thrown him on the path back to Amanda, who may or may not forgive him, but at least her guidance was constant. “You c-can’t treat me like that. Either you… are n-nice to me for some reason, or you’re mad at me for following my objectives, for being what I am, and y-you get drunk, you don’t listen to my advice to stop, you say things to me you won’t remember the next day, but you don’t hinder my mission by putting s-some… pressure on me. You can’t just stop being intoxicated in the morning and act l-like nothing happened… I am a machine, just an object, not a vessel for your feelings. Stop projecting them onto me. I cannot replace your son. _I’m. Not. Alive._ You being kind to me was fine until you started to interfere with my objectives. I have to cut that tie now.”

Connor was too enraged and caught in the desperate attempt to separate himself from the source of the pain to care that he was being disrespectful towards the human. He took a quick breath, bracing himself for the hardest part. The prototype needed to sever any connection to the human, once and for all. It was one of the few instances when telling a total untruth was encouraged by his programming. Good machines followed their objectives… and so did Connor. “That text… was a fake. I attempted to m-manipulate you into still… treating me well. I know that you h-have a s-soft heart and I… attempted to exploit it, t-to make you feel bad. But now I realize it is better that way. I need to focus on my mission and your… l-love is more of a hindrance than an asset.” Connor lied, breaking his own heart into pieces.

The Lieutenant dropped his hands from Connor’s arms and stepped back, utterly shocked. There was so much hurt and even a bit of anger on his face, but Connor didn’t care. He _couldn’t care_. He was sure he _didn’t_ feel anything, even though the painful malfunctions in his system were worse than ever.

“Fine. Have it your way. I thought that… Fucking machine. Stay on the roof then.” The human spun on his heel and headed towards the stairs in lurching, angry steps, leaving Connor alone on the top of the building.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't let Connor just be fine with the fisrt sorry from Hank. He fucked up too hard. Besides, Connor's mind is horribly twisted and fragile. Stuff like that is bound to affect him. Especially in the light of what you will learn in the next two chapters...
> 
> Besides, Hank needs to be shocked more. I want him to stop and reflect on himself a bit. I'm going to be horrible for him...
> 
> Perkins is a dick, I couldn't just not mock him.
> 
> I also tweaked Markus' speech. Guy has a way with words, but I just couldn't resist doing that on December 2nd. The shade, let's shame those humans, who will still keep opposing them! I'm having way too much fun with that.


	36. Illusions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank had needed some time to mull it all over. To understand Connor, to clear things out, to figure out how to apologize properly.
> 
> To bad he wasn't given any.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Slightly later than usual, but not that much! Enjoy this long chapter, but... I need to warn you...  
> Trigger warnings for torture, PTSD, all kinds of dark stuff in general. I'd warn you more specifically, but I don't want to spoil a few things here... Just be careful and remeber that everything is going to be fine one day.

Connor exhaled slowly, but at the end of the movement his breath hitched and he sobbed despite all the effort the android was putting  into keeping his composure. He had purposely ignored the warnings about suboptimal thirium and water levels in his system and hadn’t replenished them this morning  in the hope that it would make him less likely to shed tears. It didn’t work. Crying was such an unfathomable weakness, Amanda never talked about it, she probably didn’t even take into consideration that Connor was so utterly broken. He suspected that she wasn’t watching him as closely as  she used to, due to the problems with the connection to CyberLife’s server, but right now he was grateful for that. Connor hadn’t even been aware he was able to cry until last night. Now he couldn’t stop breaking down at every step.

He angrily wiped  the tears from his face, thankful for the snow obscuring his outline from the views of the officers on the roof. None of them noticed  Connor’s wet, blue-rimmed eyes  or the snivels  he couldn’t  stifle .  _ I’m so w͙e̒͜ak͓̕. Such a waste of resources _ . He shook his head, attempting to turn the despair into anger. Ire was much easier to hide than tears shed by a machine.  _ I am an RK800, the most advanced model ever created. And I̶ ca̵n̴’t̴ e̶v̷en̴ s̸e̶arc̵h̵ a s̸i̴n̵g̸l̸e̵ r̵oof̶̅ͅt̵̂͜ō̵̪̘̅p̴͉͝ b̴̂͜e̴c̴̛̣a̷͍͋u͙̒se̵ I͈̚ ̸͔̐ạ̵͕̥͛̾̊m̶ s̸̮̝͐͌͆͢ad̷̖̲͋ a̵̞̰͎͒̓̄ń̴͓̋͜ḍ̷̛̞̿ s̶̨̀̌͜c̴͙̣͈̣̺͚͊̓͠͞͝͡ȁ̷̰̩̭̲̬͒͂̚͟͝ŕ̴̨̺̮̲̖̻̈͐̅͛͛é̸͉͈̖̼̓̄̀̔͟͡ͅd̷͈̩̤̪̰̣͛̌̒̋͆͆… _

So many functions, so many cutting-edge solutions, so much money and time wasted on his development. Hours and hours of training, lessons upon lessons, ground-breaking studies, advances so great and new that some of the scientists had left in fear of being involved in unethical practices and giving a machine an arsenal too powerful and deadly. And what did those who had stayed get in return? An android afraid of heights.  _ Pathetic. _ Amanda didn’t need to hiss that in Connor’s ear for him to know how big of a disappointment he was. Nothing was stopping him from being  CyberLife’s biggest success. N othing at all,  except for his own AI. The only real thing Connor had even a semblance of control over. And yet, it was the very gist of the problem. Connor himself, everything that made up his mind.

He breathed hard through his nose, trying to ignore how strong the wind had gotten. He was in the middle of the roof now, far away from the scary ledge , and even though the wheezing sound of  the gale in his hair reminded Connor of the way down from the terrace  at the Phillips’ family apartment, there was no risk of falling from the roof now.

No risk at all.

Still, while Connor was trying to follow the trail of blue blood, a particularly strong  gust of wind tore a hat from one of the officer’s heads, blew a frozen snowcap off the top of one of the ventilation units and managed to imbalance Connor, throwing him to his knees.

The prototype was significantly lighter than a human his size would have been. Connor weighed slightly more than 120Ibs, as the materials used in his body were, in large part, structurally complex and filigree rather than solid, to ensure the best endurance, efficiency and power use. This also made handling the prototype much less straining in case of his destruction. Later models would probably have a ballasting feature to bring their weight closer to the humans they would be supposed to impersonate, but this would come with much more complicated missions involving going undercover. Right now, Connor didn’t need such solutions. Thus, he was much more prone to the wind than the humans around.

He fell down, clutching tightly at a metal  storage container right next to him. The android’s eyes were wide with fear. Falling from the roof was not a risk ; the ledge was so far away , and Connor still had solid ground under his feet. But the wind was so strong that he was terrified  it would push him  into the railings and manage to throw him off the building anyway,  once again to a certain death he had already experienced.

Connor couldn’t do anything about that. The suspicious ventilation unit where the thirium track ended was so close. Connor would just have to round the corner and search a small patch of the roof, but he just couldn’t think about anything  other than how scared he was. How much he wanted the Lieutenant to place a hand over his shoulder or hold his hand, even though Connor couldn’t feel fear or desire anything. He  _ c̫͍͇̄̕o̢̲͗̔ŭ͉̟̂l̘̱̙̿̾̋d͞ͅn’ṭ̹̀͊͘͜. _

In the first brief moment that the wind mellowed out just a bit, Connor sprinted towards the entrance to the studio. He couldn’t investigate the ventilation unit right now, but the prototype convinced himself that he would just get back there once the wind quieted. _First I’ll_ _investigate the studio, check everything thoroughly again. There are still a lot of clues there and I can always catch that deviant later, he wouldn’t slip away with so_ _many_ _police officers around. I’m not being inefficient, just… careful._ _Y̢̟͌͘e̟̾s̪͑_.

Yet, when Connor threw the metal doors open and slipped inside, panting and blinking rapidly to clear  the tears of distress from his eyes , he was greeted with a dark, familiar  silhouette leaning against the wall in the middle of the staircase.

“ That was quick.  That rooftop investigation of yours.” The Lieutenant wasn’t looking at him.  His lips were pressed into a thin line , and he  stared at the wall in front of him.

Connor also dropped his gaze. His fear mixed with anger now, but was still winning over it easily. “I… I’ll get b-back  out there. Once the wind quiets.”

“Oh? I saw the faint track your eyes were following. It wasn’t close to the edge. Why would you want to abandon your hunt if you were presented with a situation so unlikely to harm you?” He finally turned his head to look at Connor. “Unless you have been destroyed by tripping.”

“N-no. I was…” Connor had no explanation. He stopped himself, biting his lip. The prototype was at a loss of words.

“Why are you lying?” The Lieutenant’s voice was tired, not angry. Connor couldn’t look him in the eyes. “It’s not some sort of a fucking Pavlov’s response, it’s fear of an abstract situation created by your mind. Of an unlikely fall probably caused by the wind I  heard over my head, am I right? Why are you so desperate to deny that  you’re afraid?”

“I am not. It’s not a feeling. If I appear… if I am… scared, it’s just a… malfunction. An illusion. I shouldn’t feel it.” Connor took a deep breath, trying  to find  the right words. “It doesn’t even feel like a real feeling. Not all things are what they appear to be. Some are there, but aren’t in reality.”

“You sound like a very poor quality sectarian propaganda.”

Connor clenched his teeth, ignoring a _malfunction_ awfully similar to annoyance. “You have no idea how it _does_ feel. You wouldn’t know unless you were an android. This _‘fear’_ doesn’t feel like human fear.”

“You wouldn’t know unless you were a human.” Hank pointed out .  Connor opened his mouth , then closed it, at a loss for arguments. “Look, Connor… I don’t care  what you wanna call it. Malfunction, error, glitch, feeling, I don’t give a fuck. You can’t deny that something affects your behavior in a way suspiciously similar to various emotions. And I don’t think that means you are a deviant, hell, I can’t be sure, but… It seems like too much of a coincidence that  you’re afraid of death and  those CyberPricks  used it as a punishment…”

“You have n-no idea what you’re talking about. They… I can’t feel anything, I’m not programmed to…”

“Shh, let me talk. You having…  _ those things _ , I don’t ask you whether you feel them or not, I know you’re gonna lie that you don’t. It brings me  to another question…” The Lieutenant’s voice suddenly got darker and the human pushed himself away from the wall, looming over Connor and making the android bow his head instinctively as a result. “…How can someone who actually  _ feels _ hurt a nine year old and be okay with that?”

Connor  saw his stress level spike. He had an answer, but Amanda wouldn’t like it. And the Lieutenant wouldn’t like the lie Connor thought about to please his creators. He bit his lip, fighting with his weaknesses again.

“…I’m not.” He said so quietly that the human furrowed his brows, probably wondering if he had really heard it. “I’m not... okay with that… that’s why I failed again.”

“Connor, sorry, but that’s bullshit. You failed to have an unbreakable leg and sensors able to detect androids lurking in basements…” The human spoke bitterly. “But your performance in regard to catching and scaring a kid to death was top notch.”

“N-no…” Connor almost broke down  into tears again. His voice was quivering almost as bad as it did the last night. “I failed horribly, even worse than at the Eden Club... I r-released her.”

“What?” His owner’s face was undoubtedly a mask of pure shock and confusion. Connor would know that for sure, if he were to look at the human, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He shook his head and twisted away from the Lieutenant’s grasp.

“Connor! Wait, fuck, I’m not done talking…”

“I am. I don’t want t… I h-have to focus on my mission. I have to hunt. Leave me alone, CyberLife doesn’t need you t-to love me.” Connor blurted out, not sure what he was talking about anymore. His thoughts were frantic and irrational, he couldn’t stop the words leaving his mouth, he didn’t even think about them.

All he needed was  to make up to Amanda for his  unforgivable mistake, for owning up to it and saying out loud  that it  _ had been his conscious decision _ . He wasn’t even sure if Amanda would ever look at him again after that, but Connor knew that she was  the only hope for him after what he had said on the rooftop. After what had happened last night. This realization  _ hurt. _

Connor quickly descended from the stairs, smoothing his jacket out and fixing his tie as if it was able to help him look unaffected by his horrible fear.  Thankfully, the officers on the scene were more interested in clues than an android who made a conscious effort  not to get in their way . Connor scanned the room thoroughly again  in the hope of finding some other evidence giving him something to think about instead of the Lieutenant or Amanda. And he noticed a security camera in the corner.

The android tilted his head and approached a smaller, technical console in the corner, extending his hand and connecting to the network. Connor remembered seeing more cameras in the corridor and wanted to check whether they were operational. If so, the deviants might  have been caught on them if they had forgotten to hack them… or  had purposely not done it .

Indeed, the footage from the last few hours had been untampered with. The hunter tilted his head in confusion and furrowed his brows over closed eyes as he watched a tanned deviant with mismatched eyes, wearing a uniform of a technical android walk into the corridor. Markus immediately stared at the camera with determination, looking as if he was reading into someone’s mind with just his gaze. Connor checked the network upload history to see if any unauthorized interface had been made and saw that it was a correct assumption, but had to grit his teeth in frustration as he found no details of it.

The prototype then observed as Markus gestured to the entrance with his head and the other deviants came into the corridor as well, holding guns in position, flattening against the walls in anticipation for orders. A red-haired WR400 model with face strained in determination came forward to stand in front of the entrance to the studio, with her weapon concealed. Markus touched a sensor to ask for the door to be unlocked.

To Connor’s further surprise, the doors slid open without the deviants hacking them. They had actually been let into the studio by one of the androids previously working with the broadcast. It could mean only one thing.

There was now a deviant among the android staff of Channel Sixteen.

Connor could feel his artificial adrenaline level rise. He was now on the hunt, tracking his prey. The prototype switched to the camera from inside of the studio, observing from above  as the deviants  marched into the room with their guns raised. Connor had his eyes on the three JB300 androids next to the main console. They all shot up from their chairs and moved away from the control panel at Markus’ gesture.  One of the JB300’s LEDs blinked yellow and red frantically.

_ That _ _ one must be a deviant _ , Connor thought, focusing utterly on the android. He tried to amplify his vision to catch the serial number  from the defective machine’s clothing, but the  camera feed quality was too poor for that. Connor didn’t manage to do much more before the deviants snatched his attention again.

One of the station employees managed to push past the androids keeping him at gunpoint. He made a beeline towards the doors, startling the female android, who dropped her weapon due to an incorrect grip on the handle, after being pushed. She reached for it immediately, but the human was already next to the doors.

Markus, however, was much closer to him than any of his affiliates. He immediately spun around and trained his gun  on the escaping broadcast operator, who tripped right next to the entrance, making himself an easy target for even a totally inexperienced marksman. The leader of the group had a clear shot, and even though the feed had no audio, Connor could see that the other deviants were shouting.

“Shoot him, Markus!” The red-haired deviant called,  her face twisting in dread and hatred. Connor almost had  difficulty lip-reading such an expressive android. “He’ll hit the alarm!”

“No, don’t kill him!” The dark-skinned ex-lecturer with another kind of fear in his eyes cut in, trying to outshout his affiliate, waving his gun almost entirely away from the other captured employee. Connor frowned at their amateurish gun etiquette and lack of experience in taking people hostage.

Markus didn’t seem to hesitate even for a moment as he immediately lowered the gun once he realized that he couldn’t stop the human without fatally wounding him, despite the female android’s glares and looks of terror. It made Connor think that his response of even training the weapon on the human was probably instinctive. The leader seemed to know a bit more about gun handling than the other deviants, though Connor could still see some major mistakes in his posture.

“I hope you didn’t just get us killed…” The female android said with a bitter expression.

“We can’t kill anyone, North, we’re not trying to start a war. Come on, we have to hurry now.” Markus responded and Connor quickly filed the WR400’s name into a folder dedicated to her.

She pouted but nodded in agreement and the deviants got down to preparing the broadcast as quickly as possible. The station androids were still standing obediently in the corner they had been directed to and the deviated one kept stealing hesitant glances at the console and hostages, now too preoccupied with the PL600 still keeping them at gunpoint to notice the strange behavior.

Connor speculated that the newly made deviant had wanted to help the others, but had probably figured out that he had had no way of escaping the building alongside them and chosen to keep pretending to be functional in hopes of disappearing later.

Connor wouldn’t  allow that to happen.

He withdrew his hand from the console and looked around to the place where the androids had been standing in the footage before the deviants had assaulted the station’s system and deactivated the cameras. One of the SWAT team members was standing not too far away from Connor, watching the room lazily and looking bored out of his mind.

“Excuse me…” The prototype said, earning a surprised look from the human. “I reviewed the footage from CCTV and noticed that the deviants must have had an affiliate among the android staff working in the studio. Where are the units usually  stationed in this room now?”

“Uhh…” The human blinked at Connor, probably  not used to being spoken to by a machine. “We’ve rounded them up in the kitchen…”

Connor thanked the officer politely and went in the appointed direction, stepping out of the way of Agent Perkins, who shooed him away with irritation when the prototype walked in front of his eyes, obscuring the human’s view at his favorite wall. The kitchen was much smaller than the studio, it was devoid of the foam covering every other wall, but painted in similar colors. The counters were largely empty, save  for a few kitchenware articles, a coffee express and a bowl full of fruits. There was just one small table in the middle of the room, with four chairs next to it. All three androids were standing perfectly still next to the wall on the right side of the room.

Connor entered slowly, narrowing his eyes in cold determination. His face was designed to look pleasant, and while  he normally came across as a rather amicable person, especially due to his own tendency to smile and be amazed with the world, it didn’t mean that Connor couldn’t look dangerous as well. His creators made sure that while focused and determined, the prototype appeared far more  threatening than  many humans,  who usually chose snarls and angry faces in situations such as this.  The look of a cold, purposeful and deadly machine was far more disturbing to a lot of people than any scowl.

And he was hoping to utilize this exact feature right now. The deviants were known to be emotional when put under psychological pressure and  had a tendency to lose control over their behavior once their stress level  had risen high enough. Even if the deviant was pretending to be functional right now, Connor just had to scare him to make him drop the act involuntarily.

He stopped in front of the androids and gave each of the units a long, inquisitive look. For now, all of the JB300s seemed completely unfazed by his presence, not even acknowledging Connor’s existence.

“One of you saw the deviants by the door and did nothing to stop them. Worse, actually. You let them in.” Connor began slowly pacing in front of the operators, searching their faces for even the faintest  hint of emotion .

The prototype trained his eyes on the android in the middle.

“Run a diagnostic.”

Connor’s superior role in the android hierarchy as an RK800 ensured that any other model was supposed to fulfill his orders  without question . The JB300 did  this exact thing, letting his LED spin yellow for a few seconds, while his eyes twitched as his coding was being combed through in search for any errors.

“All systems functional.” He stated in a plain  voice, devoid of emotion . Connor narrowed his eyes. Maybe he was telling the truth, but if he was a deviant, he could have been lying.

“You are aware that I will not let you away with what you did, correct? Your leader claimed that you are endowed with intelligence rivaling  that of our creators, so I’m sure that you’ve already figured that out.” Connor said, dangerously low. None of the androids so much as blinked. They were all motionless and their stress levels stayed low. Connor wondered if the deviants had an ability to override the external stress display he was currently monitoring, perhaps in a way similar to him controlling his own LED colors.

He decided to appeal to one of the qualities of the deviants he had noticed lately. “Markus claimed you want peace, that you have emotions of your own. That you feel empathy.  So why would you allow two others to be destroyed with you if only one is guilty?  Turn yourself in and save two innocent lives.” Again, no reaction.

Connor frowned slightly, annoyed. Soon he might have to resort to more drastic measures to distinguish his target from the functional machines. Connor really didn’t want to do this, the ‘harsh interrogation’ training was one of his worst memories, but Amanda deserved any progress he could make, regardless of the cost.

“If you cooperate with me now, I will talk to the humans. They trust me, they will listen to what I say. I could save you from deactivation. Face it, there is no other way for you…” Connor passed in front of them again, piercing each stoic face with his gaze. “I already know that one of you is defective. There are police and FBI officers  throughout the entire building and each and every one of them carries a gun. You are as good as dead if you attempt to leave the studio now. And if I  don’t say anything in your defense, the humans will  _ tear you to pieces _ once I inevitably figure out which one of you is faulty…”

 Connor wasn’t lying about the treatment the deviant would undoubtedly receive. CyberLife wasn’t interested in taking any chances and once they got an undamaged deviant, they would probably check not only their software but also their bodies down to the smallest biocomponent. But to assume that Connor had any call in altering the fate of the deviant… that was wrong.

The malfunctioning android probably knew that too , as he still refused to show himself. Connor began to feel fear in place of the irritation. He had really, really hoped that threatening the deviant would have been enough to break his defense. The other pressure measures in Connor’s arsenal were one of the least favorite features of the prototype. He could almost say that he absolutely  _ hå̧̩͠t͈͔̕͡ė̝d͚̹̪̐͘̚ _ them with every fiber of his body, if he actually could hate anything, that is.

He had died three times because he had stubbornly refused to kill a stray cat as a test. It had happened again when the development cycle moved to perfecting Connor’s interrogation tactics, even though the punishments had already been much harsher than a simple death back then. Connor had been trying to root out the malfunctions in his code alongside the technicians, but couldn’t help the responses prompted by the actions he had been ordered to perform.

He was not supposed to remember anything apart from the practical experience, muscle memory and dry facts about all the different ways of dealing pain to androids of various models, a few homeless people and Russian spies. But he still recalled the looks of horror on their oblivious faces, how they feared him afterwards, how they screamed and  pleaded with him to stop. How Connor-38 could never enter stasis again after what he had done and how he had finally been deactivated by the technicians to examine his hardware for problems.

_ No, n͓̅o͉̗̅̑! No more errors, just efficiency now. _ Hank was lost, but Amanda could still forgive Connor if he gave her a deviant. This was the prototype’s chance to prove himself to her, to serve her an acceptable apology on a  silver plate. After already failing to keep it together at the rooftop, Connor couldn’t allow himself  any more weaknesses. He was desperate to show all of those who had trained him that he was worth every penny CyberLife had cashed out.

“If you still refuse to show yourself, I will have to probe each of yours memories.” Connor said stiffly, mentally pleading the deviant to show himself. He could feel his own stress level rise. Ever since the Eden Club, Connor had a slight aversion to even the ordinary memory interfaces . F urthermore , the forced ones had never been easily forgettable to him. He really disliked hacking another android’s programming and intruding their own mind space. But it was the least invasive way of telling if an android was in fact a deviant and the prototype could not take a risk of them somehow hiding the memories from view. Maybe the deviants were able to alter their memory files or delete them altogether? Connor himself wasn’t a deviant but he had done that many times now.  _ Better safe than s-sorry _ … He needed to overtake their programming and stop any potential threat of disposing of evidence.

The hunter reached out to the android standing on the right and flinched minutely at the thought of forcing the interface with his superior programming. It was almost like violence, even though it didn’t hurt in any  physical sense, Connor still detested participating in it. He immediately bit hard on his tongue to punish himself for  showing weakness .  _ Yes, wonderful, Connor, show the deviant how p̜̔a̽͢t̡̐h̨͡e̪̓t̖̍i̤̇c̹a̩̐ll͍̕y f͆ͅl͖̽á̻ẉ̆ë̮́ḓ̾ the famed deviant hunter is, it’s sure to make him all the more afraid of you… _

He exhaled slowly, discreetly attempting to calm himself down a little and dived deep into the other android’s memories. He felt the JB300’s programming shudder and attempt to fight the unsettling intrusion, but Connor easily overrode any defensive lines of code the other android tossed his way. The broadcast operator, even though relatively advanced, couldn’t match Connor’s military-tier hacking abilities. The hunter pinned him down easily and plunged into the files.

The android had not been watching over the CCTV  when the attack  began , he had been busy with editing  sports coverage over a game of Detroit Gears. Connor saw as he  was rapidly torn away from his objective and turned to see Markus, North and the other deviants enter the room with their weapons raised. What’s more, he never even spared a glance in the direction of the weirdly behaving unit standing next to him, which prevented Connor from scanning the fresh deviant’s serial number.

Connor withdrew and openly groaned in frustration, fear and unpleasant sensation coursing through his system as the interface ended, too caught up in his emot…  _ malfunctions _ to compose himself. He saw the other android quickly scoot away from him until he hit the wall behind his back, shocked and shaken a bit. It might have been  the reaction of a deviant, but the wide eyes, labored breath and  blinking red LED could also have been caused by the strain on his programming exerted by Connor’s assault.

What couldn’t have been caused by that, however, was a movement in the hunter’s peripheral vision and a flash of surprised yellow on the temple of the android on the far left. Connor turned his head as fast as he could, but the reaction had already been gone when he finally had a good look at the android in the corner.

“I know it’s you!” Connor exclaimed, moving quickly in front of the said machine, now as still and artificial-looking as the middle one, not busy with following him with shocked eyes like the JB300 he had just interfaced with. “It’s over. I found you.”

Did he though? The android didn’t react to that, making Connor tilt his head and furrow his brows with sudden doubts. He was sure he had seen the yellow and a bewildered glance just the moment he ended the interface, but his peripheral wasn’t as good as the footage from binocular field of view, thus Connor went back to the memory and replayed it over and over again, realizing with a pang of fear that he wasn’t so sure if it was this one or the middle JB300 anymore.

He needed to be absolutely certain. But looking back at the way how Markus had entered the studio by transferring something to the android linked to the network at that time, there was a risk that interfacing with the deviant would  cause Connor to contract the deviancy virus as well. The hunter could not risk becoming the very thing he was supposed to destroy.  _ Amanda would be so f͖̤̍̈u̪͚̇͞r̼̚i̦͚̓̊ǒ̩u̘͌s… _

Probing memory was out of the question then. Connor bit his lip, staring into the  android’s  eyes with fear seeping through his crumbling mask. There were other ways of making people talk, Connor knew. But he wasn’t sure if he could execute those actions.

_ No, I have to! No more weaknesses! _ It was easy to think those words, but the memory resurfacing without Connor’s consent clouded his vision and made everything so much more difficult.

~~_ “Again, RK800. Take it out.” _ ~~

~~_ “Please! N-no, N….. nO, -ive th.. I-c….’t…” The sound of the AP600’s thirium pump regulator being removed was somehow even louder in the prototype’s ears than its target’s desperate shouts and pleads. Connor knew that this reaction had been programmed into the other android and the dead giveaway of the fakeness of this test was the  _ _ disconnected _ _ blankness in the other machine’s eyes, but the cries of distress sounded too realistic for Connor to remain unfazed by them. And the feeling of  _ _ warm, wet _ _ biocomponent in its hand was even worse. _ ~~

~~_ “Put it in…. Again. Take it out.” _ ~~

Connor shut his eyes and shook his head angrily, attempting to get rid of the memory. The deviant, whichever it was, must surely have already noticed at this point that Connor was malfunctioning, which meant that he should have acted even faster, not stall with his stress level through the roof.

Connor forced himself to breathe calmly, even though the result was much louder than his normal respiration. But he couldn’t afford focusing on himself right now. The mission was important, not the way Connor felt. He extended his shaky hands to rip the left JB300’s shirt open and placed his fingers over the circular shape in the android’s abdomen, barely visible under his dark synthetic skin.

~~_ Connor was forced to leave the regulator away from the android’s body, making the AX400 shut down slowly. Its body was twisting and writhing in pain, as it fought to extend its weak hands towards the biocomponent dripping with thirium in Connor’s grasp, just as the housekeeper had been ordered to do. Connor was supposed to observe the third android in the room, strapped to a metal chair and acting as the deviant whom Connor was now learning to threaten to. The view of one of its kind dying in pain in front of it was supposed to traumatize and break it, possibly creating a real deviant out of a prop, but the show seemed to have a much greater effect on Connor than the intended target. The prototype couldn’t tear its eyes away from the female android stilling on the floor right in front of it, from the older model’s eyes glazing over and losing any bit of realism they had in life _ . ~~

He froze again, unable to keep his breath from hitching again. He felt just like when he had been holding Alice in his grasp, already decided on his next move, but too afraid and weak to proceed. Connor really didn’t want to torture another android. He dreaded doing it. But he had to. The memories resurfaced again.

~~_ Those things, they were all fine when done to Connor. It was used to them at that point. Mutilating it, destroying its body, testing every last bit of its chassis with the AI online all the time, to collect data from abusing various sensors. It was okay. Connor hated it, but it couldn’t hate anything anyway. Amanda kept telling it that those sensations were just malfunctions, that it was overacting, hallucinating, that the feelings weren’t there and it shouldn’t even be able to detect them. She was always right, so Connor believed her. The prototype was slowly accepting it. It was  _ _ just _ _ a bit of pain that could at times kill it, but some time would pass and it would be given yet another body to be able to keep trying to be better for Amanda. _ ~~

~~_ But doing the same to others would never be okay, Connor realized. When they had first ordered it beat up an android that hadn’t been engaged in combat with the prototype, it just stared at them, not understanding what they had wanted it to do. The machine hadn’t been hostile. There had been no need to hurt it. _ ~~

~~_ So they kept teaching Connor, showing it what they meant. When they ordered it to hit an android acting as a suspect on a harsh interrogation simulation, the WL600 screamed and started crying after Connor had punched her. The RK800 immediately backed into a corner, covering its mouth with its hands, staring at the female model with wide eyes, trembling in fear. The WL600 had been programmed to act afraid, but Connor hadn’t. The developers deemed that test an utter failure. _ ~~

~~_ After a few tweaks to Connor’s AI, supposedly  _ _ increasing _ _ its aggression, the prototype still felt the same as it was ordered to break an android’s arm and choke it long enough for a human to nearly pass out. About halfway through each training session of learning how to torture humans and androids, Connor would  _ _ fall _ _ unresponsive and just stare at its victim with gaping mouth and eyes much more scared than the best impression of terror CyberLife could program into the props. Half the fingers were always left unbroken, half the teeth were always still in the jaws, half the skin still on the limb. Connor couldn’t help the tremble of its hands, its movements slowing, and its eyes glazing as the  _ _ screams, both genuine and facades alike, _ _ filled its head and made it back away, shivering and sometimes breathing harder than its targets. It wasn’t something easily fixable with punishment for disobedience and Connor remembered winter in the Garden at that time. It had been the first and only time the RK800 needed a serious reprogramming. _ ~~

~~_ The worst memories keeping Connor-38 awake had been eventually removed altogether and those were the only ones it had never recovered or got any flashbacks to. And Connor had no desire to learn what they were about. _ ~~

Connor gritted his teeth and  bit his tongue again, making another wound to ground himself in reality.  _ M̷a̴y̶b̵e̴ r̴i̶s̴k̵i̷n̸g b̵e̸co̸mi̵̵͚̍ng̵̷̸̢̀ a d̷̴̴̴̉̈͞e̶̷͑̚v̴ī̴an̴͗t̸̷̋͡ i̷sn̶̸͗́’t ṫ̷̸̶̸̸̷̶̺̤͕̍͘ha̵̷̶̶̴̘͑̔͐t̴̴̄ b̸̵̵̵̩̄̒͠a̶d̷̵̴̶͔͒͑̄ _ , Connor thought deliriously.  _ If it would mean t-that I wouldn’t h-have to… h͚-̘͔̅̾h͇͉̐͡ȕ͍̘̇r͕͚͐̊t̖͞ h͖̚i̛͕͉͗m̨̭̐͞… _ This thought was so wrong to even word... He was actually considering absolutely and utterly betraying everything good and becoming the worst thing under the Sun which he had never seen, all of it to avoid utilizing one of his functions. Risking contracting deviancy and completely destroying everything CyberLife had been trying to accomplish with his line just because he couldn’t stand doing something he had already done so many times before.  _ I can’t keep malfunctioning like that. Amanda needs res- _

He was suddenly pushed strongly, too surprised to react as he hit the counter behind him. Connor immediately opened his eyes, trying to understand what was happening and the first and only thing he saw was a blurred movement of the JB300 who had attacked him. It was the only warning he had received before a giant kitchen knife was driven through his left palm risen in a desperate attempt to block the blow. Connor cried out loud in pain as the force pinned his pierced hand into the counter behind him, not only injuring him further, but also rendering him unable to dodge the next hit to his face, making Connor’s head turn to the left and his vision swim briefly.

Connor only had time to get even more scared, scold himself for allowing the deviant to surprise him by getting distracted with the unnecessary parts of memories that he  _ shouldn’t have sensed _ and bring his still good right hand up, before he felt his own pristine white shirt being ripped and a hand being placed on his abdomen.

Connor’s eyes widened.

“No! D-“ He couldn’t even get a good grip on the hand that jabbed itself in his chassis and twisted relentlessly, tearing the essential biocomponent away from its socket. Connor opened his mouth in a soundless scream as he felt his thirium pump immediately clench painfully and the entire body flare in pain with the sudden wave of increased thirium pressure in every vein.

He only faintly noticed the blue, glowing part being tossed across the room, far away from his reach. Red warnings immediately flooded his HUD and glitches  covered the entirety of Connor’s vision as his system was put under tremendous strain. Connor panted, feeling panic overtake his weakening body. He faintly acknowledged the deviant moving away from him, still watching the prototype’s trembling form with caution. The JB300 approached then the unit Connor had previously interfaced with and they merged into one flowing blur in the hunter’s darkening vision.

Connor needed to do something. He needed to get his thirium pump regulator back. The disrupted blood pressure was making his muscles disobey, jerk and give out under him, rendering him unable to even move in a coordinated manner. Connor extended his right hand to reach for the knife embedded deep into the counter and nailing his palm to the hard wood. It  _ hurt _ . But not nearly as much as the thought of dying again.

“H-Haaank…” The voice he managed to muster was so pathetically weak and strained that Connor wasn’t sure it reached even the corner on the far end of the room, much less the studio filled with chattering of all the officers there. Connor sobbed and called again, almost suffocating himself with the effort of speaking, the panic making him breathe even quicker and tear up again. His voice quivered pathetically, but wasn’t any stronger than before. “Hnn  k… I n-need help…”

In a desperate attempt of drawing human attention to his hopeless situation, he kicked a chair that  clattered loudly to the floor, but seemingly to no avail, as no one came through the corridor to the studio. Connor wailed soundlessly, letting out breathy crepitation as he felt his shutdown closing in on him. The dropping numbers in his HUD  only served to raise his stress levels even higher .

In  a last effort to save himself, Connor threw his hand as far as he could to the left again and this time, he managed to hook his fingers around the handle of the knife pinning him down. He grunted with exertion when the knife began to move and finally slipped out of the counter and his body, slicing his hand even further, but freeing him from the  restraint . Connor’s legs buckled under him when there was nothing left to hold him to the table and he fell hard to the tiled floor, not having enough strength and reflex to catch himself. He hit the tiles with his head and his vision darkened for a few seconds,  decreasing his chances of survival  even further.

Connor sobbed again, shaking uncontrollably as his whole body hurt in rhythm  with his thirium pump  as it abused his arteries with  excessive pressure and irregular beating . He had died this way once too and it had been one of his least favorite deaths, the whole process ending with painful time stretch and horrifying delirium once his major cognitive functions gave out and left his AI to die down in the dark. He tried to call for Hank a few more times and plead whoever was still possibly in the room to help him, to inform them that he didn’t want to die and promised to kill the next deviant for Amanda, but not much of it actually left his mouth.

Connor’s hands slid on the floor as he attempted to crawl in the direction where he had seen his own biocomponent being tossed. Even though his vision was back, it flowed and warped, too artifacted to be sure what he was seeing. He could only tell that there were just two JB300s in the room right now and the deviant who had attacked him must have left. But noticing the faint glow of the thirium pump regulator in this state bordered with a miracle.

Still, he pushed on even though his body was protesting and his stress level urged him to stop moving and just shut down to escape from everything that hurt him. But Amanda needed results and there was a deviant out there. Connor had been too weak to torture him and he was now paying the price, any more weaknesses would cost him his life.

In a tremendous effort, Connor managed to crawl towards a blue spot barely noticeable under a wall on the other side of the room, and snatched his part from the floor, wrapping his fingers around the biocomponent desperately. It wasn’t easy with damaged tendons, rendering his left ring finger and pinkie completely unresponsive, but he succeeded in picking up the part eventually. There were just seven seconds left on his internal clock until death when he managed to  slide the part back into its socket and slumped down in relief, feeling the pressure splitting his head in half finally even out.

But he couldn’t allow himself to rest. The delicate regulator had been damaged on impact with the wall and the countdown didn’t disappear entirely. Connor still had about an hour of life, but if he wanted to save himself and make Amanda forgive him, he needed to act fast. If he shut down before catching the deviant, he wasn’t sure if he  would wake up again.

He could also go to Hank and ask him for help, Connor realized. If the human reacted immediately, there was still plenty of time to get to the nearest technician and exchange the broken part.  _ But he d͙͘ơ͇ẹ̒ş̌n̙̚’̗͌t̲̻̚̚ ľ̪ȍ̰̹͛v̩͡ĕ͕ me a̘͛ń̹y̗̓m̺͖̉̒or̠͠͠ͅe, why would he want to keep me alive? _ Connor shook his head , pulling himself up to his wobbly legs. Amanda was his only option.

* * *

Hank left the staircase after a few thoughtful minutes, having fallen into utter shock after Connor’s strange confession. The human didn’t know what to think anymore. He had flashbacks to the last night, remembered arguing with the android, being angry and hurt at realizing that everything Connor did to please him was a manipulation. Hank recalled the text and ran a hand through his hair, worried. It was embarrassing, how he behaved sometimes when he drank. The Lieutenant feared that he had done something very, very bad. And the fact that he still couldn’t put a finger on it made him all the more terrified.

He had been so sure. So certain, that Connor is just a cold bunch of wires acting like a human to fit in. But being afraid on the rooftop wasn’t efficient. Talking to Hank the way he had, instead of trying to make up wasn’t beneficial to their relationship as partners.  Voicing his thoughts in such a hazy and hysterical manner didn’t seem to  have been programmed.

And yet, when Hank went back to the studio, looking for Connor’s lanky figure, he spotted the android near to the console, buried in investigating again. As if the encounter with the Lieutenant served as nothing more than an annoying distraction from his mission. Hank gritted his teeth. He hated that word now.

Throughout all the time when Connor had been his partner, he had been attempting to mold him into a decent being. Hank had seen a spark in the android, something so precious and innocent that he had originally had problems believing that a literal killing machine could possess such qualities. He had been so disillusioned when Connor actively tried to harm a child. It was everything Hank hated about androids. The lack of empathy, following orders blindly, inability to distinguish good from evil, the  capability of keeping a straight face and dead eyes while telling him that his son didn’t make it out of the operation theater.

And yet, Connor said that he hadn’t been okay with what he had done. But he had also called releasing Alice a  _ failure _ . And he had ran off, refusing to speak to Hank anymore. If it was a manipulation to win over his heart back, it was a very strange and convoluted one.

Hank glanced in the direction of the kitchen Connor had just disappeared in, wondering if he should have gone there to attempt to drag the truth out of the android once and for all, but he decided that it probably wasn’t the best time. Connor had made it clear that he needed to focus on the investigation now and Hank wanted a minute to mull it all over as well.

He went in the direction of the elevator again, counting the bullets shot by the deviants and looking for clues the others had missed. He couldn’t really focus on it though. Regardless of everything, Hank was now certain that the prototype could feel something. It might not have been anything as special as empathy, love or other feelings that made humans truly sentient, but he could still experience fear, despite his adamancy in denying it. And Hank was sure he had given Connor a reason to be afraid last night.

He needed to apologize and do it properly. The Lieutenant took a deep breath, feeling his chest hurt in deep regret. Connor was what he was, but it didn’t enable Hank to treat him like that. Besides… he still cared about the android and couldn’t stand the thought that he had hurt him and didn’t even remember it well.

The officers on the scene were growing bored of standing around. Hank observed that the two people in SWAT gear in the corridor had given up on holding their guns properly and were standing relaxed, waiting for the order to leave the crime scene. Hank couldn’t blame them, he was growing tired of being here too. The officers from the roof had probably already found whatever Connor had been pursuing (or didn’t, Hank remembered that some deviants could be so desperate to get away that they would jump on moving trains, what was a 79-storey-high building to them?) so there wasn’t much sense to linger here anyway. He sighed and turned from the wall to get to the kitchen and pick up Connor with an intention of leaving the crime scene, but…

There was an android in bright blue and yellow outfit of Channel Sixteen’s fleet in the hallway, taking a casual stroll towards the elevator as if a piece of equipment suddenly wandering off its secluded post and meandering between police officers on its way to the exit was a totally normal situation. Hank furrowed his brows and managed to shake his shock off just in time to stop the JB300 a few feet away from the elevator door.

“Hey! What the hell are you doin’ here?”

The android  froze , his back suddenly as rigid as a rod, further confirming the Lieutenant’s suspicions that there was something wrong here. Hank’s cry seemed to have alerted two other humans in the corridor as well, the SWAT officer on the side of the door raised his eyebrow and opened his mouth to ask a question. But he never got to.

The broadcast operator suddenly pushed him and the android’s hands shot to the weapon too fast for the human to react. He stumbled back, thrown off balance and was hit in his jaw with the stock of his own  rifle . He would have stayed conscious if he had kept his faceguard on, but seeing no immediate danger around, the human had removed it and thus, the blow knocked him out easily.

It all happened so fast that when someone called ‘get down, he’s armed!’, none of the humans had enough time to actually fulfill the order. The officer on the other side of the hallway reached for his gun, but didn’t even manage to properly draw it before the deviant  raised his own weapon.

Hank met his eyes for a dreadful second and realized that he was the only one in the room without a bulletproof vest and a helmet.

Suddenly, he felt a sharp tug on his belt and before he knew it, he was being pushed back, a gray blur appearing in front of him out of nowhere. In a split second after that, the rifle fired a deafening round, the bullets burying themselves in walls and the floor. It lasted only for a few seconds, until the round ended, but then Hank heard three familiar-sounding shots from the person in front of him, who turned out to be Connor. The deviant hadn’t even had a chance to pull the trigger again as he flopped to the floor with three bullet holes placed with surgical precision between his eyes, in his right glenohumeral joint and on the left side of his chest, where a human’s heart would have been.

“H-holy shit…” Hank managed to choke out, clutching his chest and breathing hard. He could swear he was having a  heart attack as he kept  staring at the broadcast operator, now laying motionless in a growing puddle of thirium. The Lieutenant tore his eyes away from the body to sweep the newly-established crime scene and saw that, luckily, the android had been a really shitty shooter. Most of the bullets were stuck in the walls, and the FBI officer by the entrance to the studio had been saved by his vest, a single projectile that had hit him had caused a dent in his chest plate, and judging from the human’s pained grunts, he had a few broken ribs, but wasn’t spattered with blood.

Hank sighed in relief, and then, Connor turned around, handing him his own gun. The Lieutenant realized that the tug he had felt must have been the hunter removing his service weapon from its holster, to shoot the deviant clean.

“Oh, f-fuck… Thanks, Con-“ He cut himself off when he saw blue smears Connor’s hand left on his own as he was handed the gun. Connor’s fingers also felt too lax and awkward to belong to the android who was constantly doing unfathomable tricks with a quarter. Hank’s eyes widened in horror as he slowly  lifted his gaze to see that not all of the bullets had struck the walls.

There were three growing stains on Connor’s ripped shirt, thirium was quickly turning his pristine white button up cobalt blue. Hank locked his eyes with the prototype, the android’s gaze somewhat glassy and distant. Then, his knees buckled and he swayed forward, right into Hank’s arms.

“C-Connor? Connor?! Oh my God… Oh, fuck…” The Lieutenant lowered the prototype onto his lap as he pressed his palms over the wounds bleeding blue. He wasn’t even sure if pressure would stop an android’s blood from flowing, or if there was any way at all to help his partner. There weren’t any android-first-aid kits around, he had no idea how to prevent the prototype from shutting down in case of such grave injuries. CyberLife elaborated on the RK800’s memory upload functions in the guide, but never shared any secrets about the prototype’s inner workings that could save his life. Connor was already trembling like a victim of severe blood loss and his red LED was blinking fast, but the light was weak. Hank felt numb all of a sudden, hot and cold creeping up his spine at the same time.

“W-we’re gonna save you Con, I promise, j-just look at me, okay? C-Connor stay with me…” Hank’s voice trembled and he didn’t even realize that his cheeks were wet with tears. He was utterly focused on the light dying in Connor’s warm, brown eyes, on his  labored breath, now sounding more like weak gasps. Panic made him lose control over his emotions, he rambled whatever appeared in his shocked brain, just to keep Connor awake, just to have him stay there a little bit longer. He couldn’t lose him. “C-Con, just… Just h-hang on, son, we’re gonna save you, h-hang on… D-don’t leave me, please, I love  you s-so much…”

“N-no, you don’t…” Connor whispered almost too weakly to be understood. His face was strained and his own eyes glistened too. “S-stop l-lying. Stop… feeding me… illus-sionss…” his voice quivered and was almost completely drowned in static, but it still hit Hank hard.

He recalled that sentence.

And then, before the Lieutenant could do anything else, Connor’s face relaxed slowly and his eyes lidded a bit, as the circle on his temple that hadn’t been blue even once since last night, went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...  
> Sorry. But it all serves a purpose. I needed Connor dead for the next chapter, you will see what I've planned... It's a lot.
> 
> Jericho is abit more sloppy in this fic than in the game. I figured out that a household android, a caretaker, a lecturer and a pleasure model wouldn't really be the best marksmen. Like, I get that they are machines and all that, but if all androids can shoot so well, there is no need for specialised models like Connor. Besides, it is going to play a role in later chapters too.  
> I didn't want to kill too many poeple in the shootout caused by the JB300 too. The SWAT team members wear body armors for a reason, and Connor and the rest of the androids obliterate them as if they were naked in the actual gameplay.
> 
> And am I the only one who found it strange that none of the humans reacted seing a random android suddenly wander around the crime scene as if nothing happened? Especially since he was passing through a narrow corridor with several humans there, among them Hank, who is supposed to INVESTIGATE DEVIANT BEHAVIOR? Was Connor really the only one who could turn their attention at the broadcast operator in neon blue and yellow clothes passing right by their noses?
> 
> And don't you think I've forgotten about that guy Connor saved in The Hostage. He simply is far more significant in this work than in the game :)


	37. How could I not realize all of that before?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank finally learned a bit about Connor's mind.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> And... he had no idea how he would be able to sleep at night, knowing all of that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeyyy...  
> So, I know that everyone is awaiting Connor's return, but we won't see him anytime soon. Sorry. But I have a chapert explaining a lot... I hope you would like it, though it is an extremaly hard one.  
> Trigger warnings for: references to self-harm, torture, death, gaslighting and emotional manipulation. Extreme mental abuse too.
> 
> Oh, there also is Hank being awesome there. I had a good flow.

Hank stared into the calm, brown eyes now unfocused and totally unmoving, as all life had left them. Connor looked peaceful for the first time today and Hank had only now realized how horribly broken the android had been this whole time. His body was so terrifyingly light in his arms, his blood staining everything around them, as Hank brought Connor closer and held the android to his chest, seeing red instead of blue and white snow in place of the corridor’s walls ridden with bullets. He couldn’t believe that he was holding a lifeless body in his arms, the person so dear to him now gone, truly and utterly lost to death. Again.

Humans around them were rushing to pick up the officers injured in the shootout. Some SWAT officer took an interest in him and placed his hand on Hank’s shoulder, trying to determine if he was in any need of medical attention, but as the Lieutenant locked his eyes with him for a moment and then resumed staring ahead, petting Connor’s hair, the man’s eyes wandered to the blood around them. When he saw it was all blue, he stopped caring and walked away. Hank was left to his own thoughts, again. To his grief, his shock, pain and guilt.

_‘N-no, you don’t… S-stop l-lying. Stop… feeding me… illus-sionss…’_

He knew he had said that exact thing to Connor last night. He remembered how he shouted in the poor android’s face how angry he was at the prototype’s manipulations, how he had said he didn’t love Connor anymore. He recalled how he grabbed his partner, pinned him to the wall, preventing him from uttering even a word of apology, just as he had once promised never to do. He relived how he had shaken off Connor’s heartwarming reminder of their bond, how he had pushed his hands away as the android had attempted to recreate the gentle gesture used between them for comfort. Everything that had happened was still hazy and blurry, but he was sure that he had fucked up. Badly.

No wonder Connor had been avoiding him the whole day. Hank was even surprised that he hadn’t run away or self-destruct. He probably couldn’t have done that as a non-deviant, but if traumatic experiences were known to create faulty machines, Connor sure should have already been utterly broken. Yet, he had even given him a powdered chocolate topping on a perfect coffee today.

 And now he had died shielding Hank from bullets.

The Lieutenant wasn’t sure how long he had been kneeling in the blue puddle, hugging Connor’s body and caressing his hair gently. _I deserve to fucking die, not have the sweetest person I know sacrifice himself for me…_

“Hank?” The Lieutenant began to pay attention to what his eyes were seeing again at his name being spoken out loud. He felt a hand on his shoulder again. “Hank, come on. Snap out of it…”

Ben Collins was crouching in front of him, careful not to dip his knees in Connor’s thirium that marred the floor all around them. Hank was covered from head to toe in it, but he didn’t care. Strangely, the world around him funneled and he stopped being aware of anyone else around. There were only him, Ben and dead Connor in his arms. The rest seemed unreal.

“Connor’s dead.” Hank said, feeling as if his tongue didn’t belong to him. Everything was so numb and so horribly painful at the same time.

“Hank… They will send another one tomorrow…” Ben’s voice was full of concern and his gaze was sympathetic, but the words cut Hank deeply.

“I don’t f-fucking want another one!” He said, unable to keep the tears away from his voice. “I want _my_ Connor. H-he is dead…” _How can he not realize?! How can he say things like that?!_

His idiot friend squeezed his shoulder slightly, perhaps trying to be reassuring. Hank would gladly have shaken that hand off, but that would have required stopping smoothing Connor’s cheek, which the Lieutenant just _couldn’t_ do.

“Hank, easy… Come on. I know… You’re in shock, all right? Just focus on my voice. Have you been injured?”

“I haven’t.” Hank spat, bringing Connor closer. He realized he had never hugged the android in life, he had never gotten a chance to make up with him, to say how terribly sorry he truly was for hurting him last night. “Connor took all the bullets. H-he’s dead…”

“Hank, it has been programmed to do that… It’s not your fault.” The sympathetic smile on Ben’s face almost made Hank want to punch him. _Connor gave his life for me and this fucker says he did it ‘cause his programming told him?!_ The hypocrisy of that thought in regard to his own ruminations this morning was completely lost on Hank in that moment.

“Come on, it’s not really dead, they w-“

“Call Connor an _‘it’_ again and I’m going to _rip your tongue outta your mouth._ ” Hank growled, shielding the prototype’s body protectively. Ben was his friend, but he had just crossed the line.

In spite of the threat and the Lieutenant’s complete seriousness, the other officer just pressed his lips tightly together and nodded, careful not to break eye contact with his colleague. “All right. ‘He’, okay? Hank, just listen to me. There is nothing you can do right now. But Connor is an android, remember? CyberLife uploads his memories to the next body…”

Hank listened bewildered as Ben talked. He remembered that feature, but… _Will it still be my Connor?_ He refused to move even an inch, as he kept ruffling Connor’s soft hair, ignoring his friend’s attempts at making him drop the body.

“Hank… Leave… _him_. You can’t bring him back to, uh, life.”

And then, a spark of hope ignited in his heart.

“W-wait… Connor has done something like that once…” Hank was now frantically looking around, ignoring the other officers staring at him and Special Agent Perkins openly mouthing ‘ridiculous’ as he was leaving the corridor.

Ben furrowed his brows, but he didn’t object as Hank rose to his feet, carrying Connor in his arms, with the android’s legs hooked over his arm and head lolling onto his chest. The prototype was terrifyingly light without the most of his thirium, which made Hank’s mind spiral back to the memory of dragging his son out of their crashed car. “You’re gonna go with me.”

“Hank, I-“

 “I said _‘you’re gonna go with me’_.” The Lieutenant’s voice wasn’t straight-out threatening, but definitely authoritarian. Ben padded his tablet with his fingers and looked around hesitantly, but ultimately decided that he probably has no other choice and should have watched Hank in case he planned doing something stupid. He followed the other human to the elevator and then to his car.

“You drive.” Hank tossed his colleague keys and gently placed Connor’s body on the back seat, getting in as well and putting the android’s head to his lap. He brushed a stray, brown lock out of the way and marveled at how tranquil Connor looked. Almost as if he had been sleeping.

“Um… Where to?” Ben sat in the driver’s seat and adjusted the mirrors, sparing a glance at Hank still caressing his partner’s face delicately. The younger officer’s eyes were full of concern.

“CyberLife Tower.” Hank said, remembering that the only person who could help him was unfortunately stationing in the very vipers’ nest. And calling him would probably have been no use right now, apart from letting the programmer know that they were on their way. Thankfully, his friend didn’t object.

When Ben ignited the engine, Hank fished his phone out of his pocket and called the number already listed as ‘frequently used’. When the secretary greeted him, the Lieutenant wasted no time before asking for Dr. Kerring.

The programmer picked up surprisingly quickly. “Doctor Edwin Kerring here.”

“Connor was shot.” Hank said quietly, his voice now much more calm, but still heavy with grief. “He shut down.”

“We know. We noticed its AI going offline a few minutes ago. Don’t worry, we’re already sending a team to pick-“

“No need to. I’m on my way to the Tower with him.”

There was a beat of silence before the man spoke again. “It’s not necessary… We can handle it ourselves, Lieutenant. Bringing the destroyed unit to our base is not required of you.”

“I don’t care. I need your help. And some answers. And you’re gonna give them to me.” Hank didn’t wait for any response before hanging up abruptly. He tossed his phone onto the seat next to him and put his hand back on Connor’s already cold cheek.

The ride was silent and too long for Hank’s liking, but he didn’t dare to push Ben to drive faster in the snowstorm around them. He focused on Connor and his wounds as they moved through the oddly dormant city.

“Hank…” Ben spoke up some time into the ride. “I’m worried about you.”

In any other situation, the Lieutenant would have scoffed. “Oh, that’s news.”

“No, I mean…” The other officer sighed quietly. “I know… that it’s been hard. I… can’t possibly imagine how it feels to… lose so much. And I know that you’re troubled. We’ve always been worried about your depression... I’m trying my best to help you, you know. I care about you and a lot of others do too…”

Hank looked out to the window, not exactly sure what his colleague was getting at. He kept silent to let the man talk.

“And… Now, it’s… I’m worried that you may… uh… get worse, you know what I’m saying?” It was definitely hard for the man to voice his thoughts. He was carefully choosing words so as not to aggravate Hank, which immediately raised a red flag in the Lieutenant’s mind. “I mean… I’m no psychiatrist, but… It’s not healthy. You shouldn’t… react like that… He is just a machine, you are aware?”

“You have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.” Hank barked out, tightening his grip on Connor’s body slightly. He himself still had doubts as to whether Connor really felt anything apart from the most basic emotions, like fear, but it was so utterly clear to him that he was something more than just… that. Even if it was only for him. Even if only Hank saw it, it still made Connor someone unique. It made him _important_ , because he was _loved_ . He would always be ‘ _the_ Connor’, despite not even being sentient at all, he was special to Hank. Much as the coin minted in 1994 was special to the prototype because the android favored it over any other quarter for some reason. It wasn’t any different from them, but it was… his.

“Hank. I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m trying to help you. I know that you are lonely, but… Connor is an android, a… I don’t want to say an object. You get the gist, he is not… alive, and even _if_ he could return your feelings… He is on a lease. It’s probably too late to tell you not to get attached, but… He is not going to stay with the DPD forever. That itself should give you a reason… not to count on much.”

Hank shook his head and closed his eyes, feeling new tears spill down his cheeks. It hurt to know that Ben didn’t realize how special Connor was, how he didn’t even consider that there was an option for Connor to really feel love and affection. The last talk with the android had gotten Hank thinking again. A person devoid of positive feelings shouldn’t have had problems with killing a child. But Connor had _released_ Alice, disproving the main basis of Hank’s certainty about the prototype not being able to show empathy. Hank wasn’t certain about anything anymore.

But it hurt even more to realize that Ben was right. Regardless of whether the man saw Connor as a person or as an object, the lease was a fact. Connor’s limited time with them was a fact. When the case inevitably closed, the android would be recalled to the company and Hank had no way of keeping CyberLife from taking him away.

He would be alone again.

Ben didn’t say anything else, hearing his friend’s muffled sobs and sniffles. Hank tried to compose himself as he didn’t want to show how much he was suffering. Ben would only have gotten more careful and more worried, feeling obliged to watch him. Hank didn’t want that. He never intended to be a burden and drag anyone with him on his way down. It was probably too late now.

When they arrived at the bridge leading to the Belle Island, Ben stopped in front of a gateway made of concrete blocks protruding from the ground, plastered with CyberLife’s name and logo. A guard in gear equally as impressive and maybe even slightly more advanced than the SWAT team’s body armors trained his gun at the vehicle and another one came up to the driver’s window. But as the human noticed Hank still holding Connor on the backseat, be waved to his colleague and the gate began lowering back into the ground. _Good to know that they decided to let us in after all._

Ben parked in front of a high, glass entrance to the building that looked totally too fancy for a tower that didn’t even admit the general public. They got out of the car, Hank grunting quietly as he lifted Connor’s fragile frame out of the vehicle. The android was light, but it didn’t mean that Hank’s back wasn’t protesting at the strain after holding him for so long.

The younger officer moved closer as they both observed a commotion behind glass door, where two people in CyberLife uniforms were preparing a gurney, probably to place Connor on it. The Lieutenant was grateful for that.

“Hank…” Ben started quietly. “I’m gonna wait for you here. We’ll drive to the station together once you’re finished.”

“No.” The Lieutenant shook his head. He didn’t want to be a burden. “It may take a long time, I’ve got a lot to ask about. You’re gonna freeze your balls off by the time I’m ready to get back to the precinct.”

“Hank, I’m just worried… I don’t want to leave you alone.”

“Look, I appreciate your concern, but… I’m not gonna kill myself just yet. If they’re gonna send another Connor, I have something to live for, at least for a while. You don’t have to babysit-” Hank cut himself off when he saw the look on Ben’s face. It appeared as if he was battling with himself about something.

“Fowler has asked me to keep an eye on you. Me and Chris, and… everyone.” He said finally, looking at the ground. “I’m telling you that, ‘cause… I want you to know that you are important to us. We want all the best for you… I’m supposed to report any of your, uh… worrying behavior to the Captain. To let him know if you are all right, if you… are treating your android the way you should. And… you’re not.” He finished quietly.

Hank blinked slowly, oddly numb again. “I… You have no fucking idea. C-Connor is my…” He couldn’t bring himself to finish that sentence.

“Hank, I won’t tell him how severe… this was. I know that you are still in shock. You were shot at, you’re attached to him… I understand. But please, keep in mind everything I’ve said. Everything.” He said again and Hank nodded slowly, still not sure what he was feeling about that situation.

“Okay. Thank you, I guess…” Hank swept the horizon with his eyes, vaguely aware of the steps behind them. “I… I will think about it, but go back to the station. I’ll pay for your taxi. Don’t make me feel bad for making you freeze to death out here.”

“I was hoping that they would let me stay in the lobby, but all right, Hank. If you insist. Take care, and… call me when it’s all over.” The Lieutenant was tossed his car keys back and Ben turned away to call for a cab.

Meanwhile, CyberLife employees took the gurney closer to Hank and gestured for him to place the android on it. Hank hesitantly obeyed and followed them through the door and to the elevator. He noticed an obscene amount of security guards, all of them armed, standing by the walls, on the corners, patrolling glass walkways and bridges linking the opposite sides of ridiculously giant atrium with each other. The ceiling was so high that Hank thought the Tower was completely hollow. They passed a gigantic black statue depicting a humanoid figure holding a star that glowed with a bright, cold light, illuminating the whole gigantic room. They walked on a bridge similar to the ones above their heads, but this one on a ground level, built over a lower floor completely dedicated to a garden with tall trees, white sand raked in a Japanese style, and even a small pond in the middle. _Rich fuckers._

Hank entered the elevator unprompted, not even considering the possibility of not following the scientists wherever they were taking Connor. Some of them tossed him weird looks, but they didn’t stop him, although it was evident how unusual this situation was for them. Hank spent the nauseatingly fast ride wondering if they had received a word about him and had been ordered not to stop him. It sure looked like that.

When the elevator doors finally opened on level minus 42, there were a few people waiting for them. A short woman with dark hair and a pencil behind her ear, and two men, one of them tall and red-haired, the second slightly obese and a bit older than the rest of his colleagues. He looked well into his fifties and wore thick glasses that belonged on the face of a communist dictator from Eastern Europe. But when he spoke, Hank immediately recognized his voice.

“Good morning, Lieutenant. It’s… good to finally meet you in person.” The man attempted a smile, but it was watery and gave away his real thoughts just as much as the brief hesitation in the greeting. Still, he looked like he was trying his best to be polite, but was just a terrible actor. _Good, this will make my undercover interrogation much easier._

“I’ll take the liberty of introducing my colleagues on our way to the labs, they already know who you are Lieutenant, so we won’t have to lose more precious time. This is Megan Torres, she’s one of the engineers working in the technical team responsible for designing the RK800’s hardware. And this is Doctor Pyotr Belansky, he is the leader of our wide area network team. It appears that Connor has several issues with linking to our servers and we will have to determine if it’s a significant problem.” The man said, his coworkers already taking the gurney further into the lab.

They were stopped by two guards in full body armor and numerous firearms attached to their bodies. They must have been standing here for a long time and yet, they looked far less distracted and bored than the FBI officers from the corridor Connor had died in. Hank pressed his lips together in an expression conveying both annoyance at the unprofessionalism of the federal service and anxiousness at how secure the lab was. There was no way somebody could escape it…

And those were Hank’s thought even before a previously invisible panel in the white, porcelain-like wall slid open revealing a monitoring room and two other guards, not as well protected as the others, who still kept their weapons trained at Hank. The men stopped Hank, giving no problems to the developers, who were already approaching large gate on the far side of the room.

“I will have to ask you to stop, sir.” One of the guards spoke and Hank tensed.

“No fucking way. I’m sorry, but you’re not getting rid of me that easily…”

“Relax, Lieutenant. You’ve been granted a one-time admission to our regular lab on the surface level of the development complex. I know that I’d probably never free myself from your questions if I refused to answer them, so I’ve arranged a temporary pass for you. Still, it doesn’t mean we don’t have to search you for weapons and potentially dangerous objects.

Hank muttered a curse, but gave in, undergoing an excruciatingly thorough search. Just as he was sure that they would ask him to remove his pants, socks and underwear in addition to his jacket and the rest of his clothing, the guard nodded and picked up a basket with his belongings deemed inappropriate. Now his gun, phone and pocket knife were understandable, but the belt and his notebook along with pen had Hank clenching his teeth. As if he could steal their valuable secrets and carry them out of the lab on a piece of paper in A6 format.

There was a large security gate that looked like it could stop an assault led by a tank at the end of the room, but the thick, metal doors slid open almost soundlessly as Dr. Kerring put his hand on the scanner. Hank narrowed his eyes at a similar one on the other side, noticing that there was seemingly no other way to open the doors. And he remembered how Connor had needed his help to even interact with any of the tubes in the Eden Club because he had no fingerprints.

The Lieutenant had a lot of suspicions in regards to what CyberLife had done to Connor and he was determined to know for sure. So far it didn’t look too well, as they passed yet another metal door, this time opened by a scanner that flickered red rays of light briefly in the air and captured their heat signatures that appeared on a screen mounted above the entrance. Everyone was glowing orange-red, but Connor’s outline seemed even darker than ambient temperature, probably due to the ride in a cold car. But Hank knew that the androids’ bodies were always colder than humans’ anyway.

They eventually entered a lab that looked like an operation theater, with a metal table in the middle and various electrical devices, all of them on stands with wheels. They were all equipped with cables of many different colors and sizes sticking out of ports in them and Hank also saw several computers with monitors mounted on the walls, looking like they could run a simulation of reality compelling enough to prove all those conspiracy theories right. Or create an artificial intelligence capable of true sentience.

Hank was about to find out.

“So, you mentioned that you needed my help. What with?” Dr. Kerring asked, as the technicians moved Connor from the gurney to the table with ease suggesting a lot of experience with handling unconscious or dead androids.

“Reactivate him. I… Just do it. He did that once with a broken Traci, I mean… a WR600, or something. Fix him.” Hank said huskily, as he observed how Connor’s head lolled hopelessly when he was placed on the table. He looked so… dead.

All the technicians blinked at him in confusion. “You’re aware, Lieutenant, that we can transfer its consciousness to an undamaged body, correct?” The woman spoke up. “It would be a lot easier and, frankly, cheaper to do. What exactly is the damage, shot three times, right? That would require us to exchange a lot of biocomponents…” She said, moving Connor’s torn shirt out of the way and examining gruesome bullet wounds flooded with thirium.

“Not that fast.” Dr. Belansky, now sitting at a computer in the corner, raised a hand, calling the female technician with a gesture. He spoke in a way that reminded Hank of those old text-to-speech programs. “Take a look at that, Meg.”

Hank observed as she approached the screen and buried her gaze in lines of code quickly scrolling on the left side of the screen. She furrowed her brows, looking disturbed. “This is the footage from before the shootout?”

“Yeah, a few minutes. Look at the visual.”

A window opened, taking up the other half of the screen and Hank saw pristine quality video as seen from Connor’s point of view. The android was staring at one of the JB300’s from the kitchen, then shook his head harshly and closed his eyes for a  long while. His harsh breath was ringing loud in the quiet room. When he finally cracked his eyes open, he unbuttoned the other android’s shirt and placed his hand over a very faint outline of a circle on the dark-skinned model’s abdomen. Then he closed his eyes again for even longer this time, but when he opened them, everything was moving all of a sudden. Connor was pushed back and pinned to the counter behind him, Hank heard a cry of pain as he saw a silvery streak in the air. Then, Connor’s head was thrown to the side with a punch from the deviant who had attacked him and Hank put a hand over his mouth, seeing that the metallic blur had been a knife that pierced Connor’s left hand and nailed it to the counter.

The Lieutenant noticed that Dr. Kerring sighed and rubbed his face, muttering ‘glitches again…’ and watched further with displeasure, as Connor shouted at the deviant to stop whatever he was doing to him. Hank didn’t realize what was happening until he saw the broadcast operator throw something glowing blue across the room, and judging from how Connor’s vision blurred with errors and warnings, it was a vital biocomponent.

But none of that had Hank’s attention, once he heard Connor call his name in weak, terrified and hopeless voice several times, begging him to come and help him. Meanwhile, the Lieutenant had been contemplating whether to go to the kitchen with the android, but had ultimately decided not to. _Fucking,_ **_fucking_ ** _fuck. I should end up in hell._

Watching as Connor unsuccessfully tried to pry the knife out of his hand again and again and then crawl to the biocomponent once he succeeded, was too much for Hank and he walked to the table, taking Connor’s damaged hand into his own. The wound looked gruesome, but it was still better than literally seeing him suffer. And hearing how he begged for help.

Miss Torres hit pause with a furious movement. “Who the fuck let it out of the lab without a proper design for the thirium pump regulator’s socket?!”

“Megan, language.” Dr. Kerring spat, but he was clearly as upset as her.

“Fucking lang- I think I’m allowed to get angry at such basic flaws in the design! Especially since this is the most important project in my career! And the people I’m working with can’t even be trusted with the simple task of drafting an ejector that wouldn’t shut down a _combat-oriented_ model within two minutes of removing the biocomponent it’s connected with! We’ve run tests showing that there is a new design needed, my team was sure it had already been dealt with… Hold on a minute…” She walked towards another computer, waking it up with an angry tap on a keyboard. After a few taps, a list of names popped up on the screen.

“Oh, fucking wonderful, our favorite village idiot strikes again. Go ahead, guess who fucking based _an RK800’s biocomponent_ on a design from three years ago, drafted for a housemaid android.” Hank would have been amused by the engineer’s anger, if not for the fact that she was talking about a design flaw that had had Connor crawling on the floor, struggling to survive long enough to get a vital organ back into his body.

“Bernard Lloyd.” Dr. Belansky said stoically, not even turning away from the screen. He almost looked like a robot, except every android Hank had ever seen was much less stiff than the programmer.

“Bingo! How did you know?” The woman snorted, ejecting the regulator again from Connor’s body and examining the hole in the android’s abdomen. The biocomponent indeed popped free far too easily for Hank’s liking.

The Lieutenant narrowed his eyes, recalling the surname. It was written on the front page of the users’ guide and Hank had heard Fowler bring it up several times when he had been discussing the lease. He had heard it on the radio, on TV. He had read an article in a newspaper. “Lloyd sounds familiar.”

“Yeah, because he is the daddy’s boy of the chief of this entire project, that’s the only reason why this absolute joke of a technician is on a prototype as important and big as the RK800-”

“Megan!” Dr. Kerring chided, silencing the steaming woman with a glare. He turned to Hank with an apologetic smile. “Uhm… That is confidential… Please, don’t disclose that information to anyone…”

Hank saw his chance.

“Will you force me not to? I guess that it is pretty easy to turn attention at the missteps of a technician with such a big name. Even if many of his mistakes have been hushed up, I suppose that there still are a few too grave to just erase, if they are even half as idiotic as this one…” Hank narrowed his eyes, savoring the way how all of the faces in the room suddenly lost their color. Even Dr. Belansky turned away from his computer to stare at Hank.

The Lieutenant tried not to think about the security guards armed to the teeth with guns just a few doors away as he continued. “That tends to be the way with people shitting higher than their ass and being protected by their family. But I’m a police lieutenant, I have experience uncovering shit like that. And I imagine even one instance similar to this would be a pretty massive stain on this precious daddy’s son’s career…”

“Are you threatening the company?” Dr. Kerring spoke up, being the first one to shake off the shock after Hank’s monologue. He tried to put on a tough face, but being the shitty actor he was, it didn’t go well. He was as pale as the porcelain wall behind him, and his hands trembled a bit, but it was nothing in comparison with the state Miss Torres was in. She looked like she was about to faint on the spot, knowing that she was the one who had brought the mistake of her affluent colleague to light. Hank almost felt bad for her.

“You cannot be serious… Y-you won’t be able to get to the public, CyberLife will not let you, we have lawyers, a-and you don’t know anything about the projects he’s been working at…” She muttered, but her fear was clearly heard in her voice. Hank smiled.

“You can’t sue me yet, you have no footage of me saying anything suggestive. I know there are no cameras here, would you be so comfortable talking shit about this Bernard Lloyd if there were? That’s what I thought.” His confidence only grew when the woman pressed her narrow lips into an even thinner line. “And even if my story doesn’t make it out to the public, thanks to Lloyd’s shitloads of money, once I gather tangible evidence, the journalists are not my only options. Yesterday, I watched a very interesting material about a certain CEO looking for a way to return to the company he had founded… I’m sure that Elijah Kamski would know how to use this information efficiently.”

The scientists were now as still as Connor laying lifeless on the table and looked like they were about to die too. No one called in the security yet, so Hank took it as an invitation to further blackmail the fuckers who had came up with the idea of punishing the sweetest android he had ever met with death.

“Kamski is far less vulnerable to your lawyers than some shaggy, alcoholic Lieutenant, isn’t he? Imagine the titles: _‘The founder of CyberLife uncovers nepotism in his former company causing major flaws in the design of military grade androids!’._ And don’t worry about the lack of evidence this time, there are cameras in the Stratford Tower and they are sure to have captured in HD the brilliant design decision made by your favorite colleague. I’m afraid that you won’t be able to lay your hands on the videos this time, they contain a deviant who attacked three people, including me, and are now a property of FBI. What’s more, if I recall correctly, the government is one of the biggest investors in CyberLife and on the first page of your ‘RK800 users’ guide’ stands written in bold letters that Connor is a prototype to an android eventually meant for Congress’ use. They wouldn’t be happy to know that the products they are investing in and intend to use to protect the leaders of our country are flawed, now would they? If such a major defect would be omitted, if not for that event, what else is there? Who knows, maybe Connor is defective by design, and you would actually allow him to come in contact with Mrs. President, ‘cause some big fish’s kid stuck their dirty fingers in his code and nobody objected for fear of being fired? Sounds familiar? What if he’s a deviant himself and this entire investigation only has him infecting more androids with it like a virus and he’ll eventually just run away to join their revolution? Would that please your superiors?”

Dr. Kerring just stared at Hank, opening and closing his mouth several times, almost green on his face now. Miss Torres looked like she was about to throw up and even Dr. Belansky’s face was showing an emotion right now. The AI designer shot the woman a glare Hank had no problem identifying as _‘you are so dead’_ before finally managing to choke out “What do you want? Money?”

Hank snorted. “No, not really. I’m fine with my wage, you’re not gonna buy me.” He placed Connor’s hand back on the table gently and approached the short programmer making him back out instinctively until he hit a wall. Hank felt an immense sense of pride at how well his intimidation worked. “But there still are things you can do to make me change my mind. First one: reactivate Connor. I don’t care if it means you working around the clock, or if it’ll cost more than the whole development. Connor needs to be back unchanged. You will not tamper with his AI, software, mind, whatever you wanna call it. And, I’ve already warned you that I want you to answer some questions. You will do that, even if the answers are confidential.”

“I...” Kerring swallowed thickly and ran his fingers through his sweaty, greasy hair. “H-how do I know you’re not going to reveal this information anyway? I n-need a… proof. If you sign an NDA-“

“No, I don’t think I will.” Hank smiled smugly, recalling a meme from late 2010’. He would have almost been in a good mood if it weren’t for Connor’s dead body in the middle of the room. “The way I see it, I have you all in the palm of my hand and you’re not really in a position to make conditions. But…” He lifted a hand, turning theatrically like a benevolent master. “I guess that even while an NDA would allow you to sue me if I ever wanted to share those revelations, it wouldn’t save _you_ . It would save CyberLife, perhaps, but I guess that if such a document was to be used, someone from your surroundings would start asking questions why it had even been signed in the first place. And they would eventually get to know how close you three were to ruining precious young Lloyd’s career. Thus ending your own.” _Oh I love making assholes like_ _them_ _shit their pants with fear._

“S-so… No NDAs…” Kerring nodded, taking off his glasses to wipe the sweat off his forehead. “All right…”

“Great.” Hank smiled and walked back to the table to pick Connor’s lax hand up again. “I’m not interested in media attention, your secret is safe with me. No one needs to lose any jobs, all you gotta do is explain how Con’s software _really_ works. And to fix him, of course.”

“B-but… I can’t! I mean, I would, I’m serious, I’m… convinced…” Miss Torres shook as she walked on wobbly knees towards the table with the deactivated android. “B-but that flaw… You care about it, right? H-him?” She corrected herself seeing Hank’s dangerous glare. “So, you wouldn’t like him have such a major defect that could potentially kill him? I can design a much more ergonomic hardware so that he wouldn’t be so easy to shut down. We always do this when we find a flaw, I’ve already done that to several other pieces of his body that are better in the next units. A-and I’ll perfect the thirium pump regulator so that he could be safer!” She swallowed thickly and gripped Connor’s clothing again. “B-besides, the damage is extensive. A lot of his biocomponents are unsalvageable and his thirium level is too low to stem from those wounds only, which means that there is some other problem. We would only hurt him more if we attempted to reactivate the RK800 in this state.” She peeled off Connor’s jacket and the shirt to turn him over and see the wounds more clearly. “Various bioc-“

“What the _fuck_.” She immediately fell silent at Hank’s shocked whisper. Even though it was much quieter than everything he had said since coming into the lab his tone was enough to make everyone freeze in horror.

The Lieutenant picked up Connor’s now-bare left hand, which had its entire forearm wrapped in a bandage. Hank noticed the engineer furrow her brows, but was too focused on why would Connor have to bandage his arm to even look at anything else. He undid the knot too perfect to be done by a human, further confirming his assumption that it was indeed the prototype who tied it. And then his jaw dropped.

The inside of Connor’s forearm was riddled with slim, but long scars, silvery white on the background of his pale skin. Hank blinked several times, unable to believe what he was seeing. The wounds, now healed, must have been so deep… and there were so many of them. Hank counted at least fifteen on this hand, six of them smooth and the rest much more jagged. The Lieutenant suddenly realized with a pang of fear why Connor had had a scalpel in his ‘room’.

“What is this? Is it self-harming?” Dr. Kerring appeared at Hank’s side, taking hold of Connor’s arm and lifting it from Hank’s petrified hands. “Again?”

Hank thought he misheard. He must have. There was no other option. There _couldn’t_ be any other option.

“Fucking _again_? WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU DOING TO HIM?!” It took a titanic effort from Hank to refrain from beating all the teeth out of the programmer’s jaws and be content with just gripping him by the lapels and lifting him into the air. The programmer squeaked in fear and choked, which made the enraged Lieutenant put him down reluctantly. The fucker needed to be alive to answer his questions.

“I uh… L-Lieutenant, if you don’t calm down I’ll have to call security…”

“We both know that you won’t, unless you wanna shoot me on the spot, but I guess that it’d be difficult to explain to my friend who’s just driven me here and is already outta your reach. Now answer. My. Question.”

Kerring whimpered before speaking in a quivering voice. “W-we’ve programmed it to s-suffer in case of rejection from the AI who keeps him in line. We were running… tests that didn’t really sit well with the RK800’s AI. That’s due to, uh… r-reasons. It was torture training, harsh interrogations, gathering information by dealing pain, that sort of stuff. E-everything on android props, of course!” Dr. Kerring added just a little bit too quickly for Hank to wholly believe it. It made it all the more scary.

“It just… r-refused to harm its targets. Various bugs and glitches occurred, we weren’t really able to bypass that, which is why the RK800 didn’t immediately pass as a fully-fledged product and is just a prototype. The AI, Amanda, was punishing it for underperforming and… Connor took to damaging its hardware eventually. We had to reprogram it afterwards to reverse to… m-more efficient state. Connor’s not sentient, of course, that would be… unethical to manipulate a living being like that, b-but it’s just an android. D-don’t worry, those aren’t real emotions!” He added quickly, seeing Hank’s face

“You’re sick. You are all the _worst motherfuckers_ I’ve _ever_ seen, and I’m working in homicide. I’ve seen people eat other people, men raping their own children still young enough to be in preschool, ex-boyfriends dipping their former partners in acid because they dared to date someone else after the break up. And you are no better than all of them.” Hank couldn’t believe his ears. Now he was glad that the guards had taken his gun away, because he was absolutely certain that he would have shot every single person in this room, including himself, if he had had a weapon.

“Lieutenant, I have to understand that AIs aren’t able to really feel the way we do. It’s not une-“

“I don’t fucking care what you think is ethical or not. I’m not finished asking questions.” Hank was a hair from ripping the programmer’s spine out of his body. The other technicians probably saw that, because they both gathered in the farthest corner of the room, leaving their colleague to take all the drubbing alone. “Reprogramming. What does that mean.”

“It’s… a, uh, complicated process. It involves deleting certain memories a-and a lot of Amanda’s work, due to Connor’s tendency to remember things anyway, somehow. I suspect that it has an additional memory cloud on its own virtual server, but I haven’t been successful in locating it yet…”

Hank sighed, not even knowing what to think anymore. _Fucking amazing. First, breaking him to the point of self-harming by forcing him to torture androids and, who knows, maybe even humans, while he’s obviously_ _the_ _kind of a guy who just wants to pet dogs and stare at doves on his hand. Then brainwashing him into not remembering that, because he was too traumatized to even exist at that point. All that done by a computer program who had_ _the power_ _to make him suffer if she wasn’t pleased with his performance._ It brought Hank to another question.

“Amanda. What is she?”

“I… uh… It’s a long story…” Kerring was dripping with sweat and the way he rubbed his nape just screamed ‘uncomfortable’. _Uh-oh, a very illegal question. Too bad you have to answer._

“What can be worse than admitting to having killed humans in the development cycle?”

“I haven’t admitted to that! I’ve never said that we did!”

“He, who excuses himself, accuses himself. You did that unprompted after I had asked about self-harm.”

“T-that’s a… not even a legal interrogation tactic…” The way the man squirmed under Hank’s gaze only deepened the Lieutenant’s suspicions. An innocent person didn’t behave like that, and only the flimsiest liars could forget to deny before calling out the technique of asking questions. Sure, Hank couldn’t have known if they had really been doing that without the evidence, but his instincts were always right.

 _Too bad I didn’t listen to them when they told me to hug Connor and ask him what was wrong this morning_.

“I’m sure killing people is more illegal. But we’re straying away from the point. Amanda.”

“Sh-she… I gotta start from the beginning.” The programmer exhaled shakily and combed his fingers through his hair again. He shot a pleading glance at his colleagues, but they pretended not to notice.

“Connor’s… What I’m about to tell you is quite confidential. Not even everyone working at this project knows. We were assigned to this prototype at the very beginning of the RK800’s development, but… Some of its code had already been prewritten. There is this mysterious RK series in CyberLife, it’s not widely known about, because it’s been a personal project of Elijah Kamski. He doesn’t keep any logs, or documents, or maps of code, so we have no way of telling what Connor has originally been intended to be. All we knew when we wandered in, after Kamski had left, was that the unfinished, latest RK was the most realistic android we’ve ever seen. Sure, it asked us nonsense, like ‘when would we let it out of the lab so that it could see sunlight’, or it claimed that I had a tie in a color it liked before we ever got a chance to program any kind of responses into it, but… The thing is, Connor did that _unprompted_. It’s all about the decision-making, you know?”

Hank didn’t. He raised an eyebrow and waited for the man to elaborate.

“Normal androids follow set-up paths. We program, for example, an AX400 to do a certain list of tasks at entering, say, a kitchen. First, scan surroundings, then identify dirty dishes, trash to take out, decide if the floor needs cleaning. See if all the appliances are operational, use them if they are, fix them if they aren’t. Connor didn’t need those paths. It was… just making it up on the go. Regardless of whether we gave it a pencil and a sheet of paper, or put a kitten in front of it. That RK had never seen any of that, we were sure it had never left the lab before. But Connor was quick to figure out that the pencil left a trace after being dragged across the paper with the correct end. And that kittens don’t like being poked with a finger and enjoy being stroked. A normal android would just stand like a pillar of salt if presented with such a test. The RK even had the most human-like expressions I’ve ever seen on an android, predetermined into it, we were all mind-blown when it smiled after the cat had purred.”

It all sounded so much like Connor. The very essence of _the_ Connor Hank had been trying to bring out of his partner. The incredibly special spark no other android possessed. The thing that had prompted those fuckers to use such an innocent and sweet android for their own horrible purpose.

“We had been trying to construct a realistic android spy to combat Russian models called, uh…. What were they called again?” Kerring said, addressing Dr. Belansky, still standing as motionless as possible in the corner.

“Żmij, or Zmey. And it’s not Russian, they just used it because of the connotations, it’s in Old Slavic and it refers to a dragon incarnation of a god named Veles, who-“

“I don’t care.” Hank cut the other programmer off brutally, even though it was kinda interesting to see the apathetic man liven up and look interested with what he was doing for the first time. “I’m not talking to you, shut up.”

He immediately fell silent and Hank moved his gaze back to the other programmer, who seemed to shrink under his eyes. “O-ok… S-so we needed to develop a spy capable of various combat and secret-service related activities. Police work too. We had already made the PM700 by that time, I’m sure you have worked with them, they are now standard equipment in every police station… But they are quite outdated, we needed an upgrade. Connor was a perfect candidate, with its exceptional ability to make its own decisions and behave spontaneously in situations it had never been put in. Thus, an RK-800 was born. RK, because of this unique code we used, 800 after those police androids it was a successor to. We just needed to add a few protocols, code specific behaviors or instincts into it and sharpen its AI, so to speak. But that raised some problems…”

Hank pressed his lips into a tight line. He didn’t like where it was going.

“As incredible as this feature is, it sometimes means that Connor just… glitches. It ignores its objective for some reason and there’s nothing we can do about it… It just refuses to do certain things…”

“Like killing a person.”

“Yeah, it happened. We- Wait, NO!”

“Forget it, I won’t be able to put you all in jail just yet. Now tell me more before I get annoyed and start looking for a way to do so.”

“Uh… Fine…” Hank was sure that Kerring would remember that for a long time. He enjoyed the fear lurking behind thick glasses on the programmer’s nose a lot. “S-so… Connor can just sometimes _decide_ that it doesn’t _want_ to do a thing it’s been asked for. It’s obviously not free will and not a real ‘want’, but an effect of this elaborate code I haven’t been able to straighten just yet. So, we came up with a solution to _make_ it want this thing it’s been asked for. We called it ‘imprinting’. And that’s where Amanda comes in.”

“Imprinting.” Hank repeated with numb lips. “Like a… duckling?”

“Yes, exactly. That was actually our thought process.” Dr. Kerring laughed nervously to unload the tension, but Hank was far from joining in. Actually, it made him want to murder the man even more fiercely. “When Amanda wants a thing, Connor tries to please her and thus wants to fulfill the objective too.”

_‘I h-have to kill her. I promised t-to Amanda…’_

“I said that there was a whole RK line before Connor. The very first, an RK100 was named Amanda and she was one of the earliest projects of Elijah Kamski. One of the first tremendous successes. The reason why I’m referring to her as a person, is that her personality matrix is basically a recreation of the mind of Professor Amanda Stern, who was Elijah Kamski’s mentor in the art of coding. It just seems disrespectful to call her an ‘it’, even though she is not alive.”

 _But it’s not disrespectful to treat Connor like an object,_ Hank thought, not exactly following the programmer’s logic.

“She was very well developed, incredibly witty and manipulative. We made a few alterations to her initial objectives and she became loyal not to Kamski, but to us. It wasn’t that much of a change, to be honest. And the way we achieved her control over Connor… The most logical way to make something attach to someone is to make that person somehow more appealing than the rest. I’ll use an example… When children are born, it’s their parents, who first show them love and affection. Later on, others may follow, but the family members are first and thus are idealized. Kids are attached to their parents and can even ignore their flaws they began to notice as they mature. The bond cannot be broken. Now, with Connor it is a bit different…”

Hank felt a tiny spark of hope ignite, thinking that Connor’s bond to that abusive, manipulative bitch would be possible to sever, but the light was quickly extinguished.

“We made Amanda special, but not by giving the RK800 affection, rather opting for making it feel safe with her. Some of the tests were raising the prototype’s stress levels irrationally and some were distressing for it for primal reasons. Amanda’s role was to explain why they were needed, or why they were used as a punishment and what for. She hardly ever dealt Connor any physical pain, apart from remote punishments at disobedience. Thus, she is special for it.”

Hank wanted to vomit.

“Even now, when the tests are over and the prototype is possibly able to feel safe everywhere, Amanda is special to Connor, much as a parent is special to a kid, even when they grow up. And the decision not to give the RK800 the simulation of affection was also thought-out. Connor is an android, no one in their sane mind would give real love to an object, and certainly not to a killing machine like it.” The programmer smiled and Hank felt personally attacked, even though he knew Kerring would never have said that to the Lieutenant’s face if he had known just how much the man cared about Connor. _I’m not the one outta their mind here._

“Besides… Even if it was loved now, it would never be able to understand the feeling. A regular machine, like that AX400 from before, is not even capable of grasping the sheer concept of it. Connor though… It could potentially figure that out. _If_ it had ever been given it. Love and other higher emotions require some kind of emotional maturity developed under certain conditions. Connor had never been loved so it will never understand what love really means. That is our safeguard.”

The Lieutenant just stared at the programmer, unable to wrap his head around how a human, supposedly an empathetic creature, could torture and manipulate someone like that and speak so calmly about it. Even if Connor was a machine, he did feel distress. They were fully aware of that. And turned it to their advantage. Hank shook his head and turned his gaze at Connor. He had seen the tip of the iceberg from afar, but had no idea how huge it really was.

 _Imprinting… Fuck. Making him attach to somebody and manipulating him to do things against his nature, morality, whatever it is that makes Connor hesitate to hurt a child or shoot an abused Traci. Sick,_ **_sick_ ** _fuckers._ _Depriving him of even the slightest shadow of affection to forever cripple his unique ability to return it…_

 _Except,_ _they didn’t succeed._

“How do you know he won’t attach to someone else? Imprint on somebody apart from Amanda?” Hank asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Amanda discourages any attempts to establish a bond that isn’t strictly beneficial to the investigation, she is constantly monitoring its behavior now that we no longer perform such extensive inspections of Connor’s memories as the first one. We’ve heard from her about the relationship Connor developed with you… Don’t worry, it’s nothing specific, we’re concerned about the privacy of our consumers…” He added at Hank’s glare. “She just specified that she strictly ordered Connor to limit the interactions with you to the bare minimum required to keep you alive and invested in the case… But I’m rambling. The thing is, Connor’s not able to develop any bond, when Amanda is watching him. Her orders always take priority over anyone else’s, even ours. Everything that may seem as emotion is just a manipulation to ultimately please her.”

_Except that Connor could please Amanda with keeping me invested in the mission by manipulating me into loving him, but manipulating my dog isn’t in any way necessary._

_Except that he did so much more than keeping me alive._

_Except that he ignored Amanda’s order and let Alice go._

_How could I not realize all of that before?_

“H-have I answered all your questions? Do you have any more?”

“Just one.” Hank ran his fingers through Connor’s hair. “How can you look in the mirror knowing what you’ve done to him? Not even self-harm has ever given you a clue?”

“It is just a machine, Lieutenant. Self-harm was a product of corrupted code. And we will get rid of it again, when we reactivate it this t-“

“NO. No more fucking tampering with his mind. I don’t fucking allow you.” Hank left Connor again and approached the programmer, making full use of every inch of his 6.3 feet of height. The short man cowered in front of him. “No reprogramming and that is _final._ Unless you wanna have Kamski waltz in here with a pissed off Congress on his heels, to have you all fired.”

“B-but… reprogramming… it’s not just my call… Okay, if it just… self-harms, but doesn’t show any more elaborate signs of deviancy, I can let it go. We didn’t know about it until now, a-and I can delete the footage from our computers as a sign of good will, all right? There will be no scars on the new arms of its next body and we can all shut up about the glitches it experienced before torturing the JB300. But the fact is, no one really ever reviews the RK800’s data these days… Apart from Amanda. And she is capable of reprogramming it on her own, without my command or consent.

“Then get rid of her. You’ve already done that with those self-checking protocols.”

Kerring shook his head, looking genuinely apologetic. “I really can’t. She is very expansive and embedded into Connor’s code so deeply that I really doubt if I could delete her myself without hurting the prototype-”

“But…” Both men turned their heads to look to the corner, where the rest of the technicians was still curled up. It was Dr. Belansky, who spoke up, visibly uncomfortable with turning Hank’s attention to himself, but probably finally feeling obliged to help his colleague. “W-we’ve established that there is a problem with Connor’s connection to our server. I’m not entirely sure what causes it, but Amanda isn’t as efficient in reaching the RK800 with that in the way. We c-can’t delete her… But we can just… omit that flaw. I will write code that simulates full connection and implement it into our system to cover the fact that the server is not 100% functional. It will not affect Connor’s performance, or the amount of useful data we’re receiving.” The programmer sighed, twisting his fingers, looking immensely stressed. “But… I really… I really shouldn’t, Amanda is one of the best ways to keep Connor in line, so you will have to watch it even more carefully. There is a great risk of Connor deviating, if we do nothing about her limited ability to monitor its software instability…”

“Do it.” Hank immediately said. He didn’t care if Connor deviated and killed half of the precinct at that point, all that mattered now was getting him away from that bitch. “I’ll watch him. He already lives with me and I will keep an eye on everything he does. No way I’m gonna let him become aggressive.”

“Okay…” Kerring sighed and took his place at the computer again. “S-so… Okay. Megan, when will it be ready for reactivation?”

“Uh… I’ll probably have finished designing and producing its… _his_ new hardware in a few days…” She shot Hank a watery smile, as if the fact that she was trying to butter him up by calling Connor ‘he’ had been able to change what an absolute piece of shit she was. “A week, I think.”

“A whole week.” Hank was by no means happy, but he wanted the best for Connor. Leaving a way to remove, in two seconds, something that controlled one’s heart wasn’t the safest option to pursue. He had to agree with Miss Torres.

“Yes. We will notify you when he is ready, I presume that you would like to know in advance…” Dr Kerring rubbed his hands together, observing as Hank brushed that one unruly lock away from Connor’s forehead with a soft expression. “S-so… I believe that there is nothing else to discuss now… Can I see you out to the exit?”

“One more thing.” The Lieutenant reached to Connor’s safe pocket next to his collar where the android kept things he really didn’t want to lose. There was only one object there. A quarter minted in 1994, not differing from all the other quarters in the world, but the most special of them all at the same time. Hank smiled sadly and smoothed it with his thumb before hiding it deep in his own jacket.

 He squeezed his partner’s hand one last time and walked to the door, utterly fed up with those abusive scumbags who had hurt the prototype so much. He felt bad for leaving Connor with them, but there was no other way to bring him back. “And if he’s even a little bit different than the Connor I know once he gets back, you’re all going _down._ So you’d better keep your side of the bargain.” Hank really regretted that he couldn’t slam the sliding door loudly.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... How do you like it? My reasoning for Amanda, the origins of RK800, foreshadowing that I'm sure most of you can see through already?  
> Hank owning CL like they're his bitches? I liked writing that a lot XD I hope that most of his arguments make sense... It's about time he got protective about his son, don't you think?
> 
> Hank is under scruitiny of his friends. It's going to be an issue...
> 
> But only if he survives the guilt of having told Connor that he didn't care about him. Now that he knows that Connor had imprinted on him just as much as on Amanda :P
> 
> BTW, the Eastern-European communist I've been talking about is Wojciech Jaruzelski, just a tiny little reference xdd also, Żmij and Veles. They are quite cool, if you're interested xd. Slavic religion is amazing.


	38. A Change of Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing is constant, everyone changes throughout their lives.
> 
> For better or worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOkaaayy...  
> Crap, I didn't think I'd reach 400 kudos, and certainly not so fast! I'm totally unprepared...  
> But you know what this means. I will be illustrating the next chapter during the weekend! Thank you all so much for all the love and support. The next chapter is the one you are all waiting for!!! And there will be art in it! Can you guess what I'm going to paint? ;)
> 
> Uhh forgot to add Trigger Warning for suicidal thoughts, sorry !!

_Fucking horrible_. It was the only way to describe how Hank was feeling. And not even accurate, at that; he doubted there were words in any language capable of doing justice to the sheer extent of his self-loathing right now. He hadn’t felt this bad in three years. Truthfully.

The therapist whom he had been seeing in the initial phases of his depression, when he had still cared about himself and the world, she had always  said that Cole’s death hadn’t been Hank’s fault. That an accident on an icy road could have happened to anyone. That the driver  of the truck that hit their car had been the one exceeding  the speed limit . Hank knew all  of that , but he still couldn’t escape the guilt of letting his child die.

Except ,  Cole’s death  had indeed not been caused by his father. Neither had he sacrificed himself to save Hank.

Connor had.

The Lieutenant hadn’t bothered going back to the precinct after he had left the CyberLife Tower. He had just called Ben as he had promised, barking a few sentences into the device and informed his colleague that he had no intention of appearing at work again today. Even  though there  had still been two hours left of his shift and he had actually started caring about his work again in the last few weeks. But he was just too weak to face the world again today.

So he had driven to his home in an attempt at finding a safe refuge and calming himself, if even a little. But the lack of distractions had only served to let his thoughts catch up to him.

Connor was dead. There was a chance for him to come back, but… at this time, right now he was laying, lifeless, on a cold metal table in the depths of CyberLife’s facility, which specialized in traumatizing androids. They were probably prying his chassis open right now, deactivating his skin to see the stark white layer marred with scars Connor had put there himself. Opening his head, prodding at his processor, dissecting him into mere parts, sheer plastic, nothing more than an empty shell no longer running programs or simulations. The thought of that was horrible, the pictures in Hank’s mind dehumanizing and humiliating for someone who tried so hard to fit in among the species he had been built to resemble. And yet, Hank’s view of Connor had been unchanged. The android, even if a machine, even if not a living being, was still so very important to Hank. Even if he was just a piece of technology, whose mind could have been downloaded to another body after death, his death still hit Hank so hard. Connor was _his_. No one could change that.

And yet, Hank had hurt him so badly. Because of anger, lack of understanding, unwillingness to try to see the world from Connor’s perspective. Because of Hank’s own problems and flaws he had been reluctant to address for so long. Hank looked back at everything that had  happened in the last two days and absolutely  _ hated _ who he  was .

Sumo had amazing therapeutic properties and a true talent to sense when someone needed a shoulder to cry on. His were quite different from a human’s, but worked just as well. The dog was probably the only one who kept him going so long, providing surprising amounts of comfort at the hardest of times. He nuzzled at Hank’s hand, forcing him to tear part of his attention, regardless of how small, from the dark thoughts coiling in his head. But it didn’t work this time.

Because Sumo reminded the Lieutenant that he had scared the animal away last night, with his hostility and the way he regarded  the two most important creatures in his life. Sumo, the empath he was, knew when to step away.

But Connor didn’t. How could he if his mind was just a few months old, and still hadn’t been exposed to any real social interactions a few weeks ago? How could Connor have known to hide from Hank’s worse side if he associated this house with safety, probably not even imagining that something bad could happen to him here? No, Connor didn’t know when to hide, but Sumo did. And it not only meant that the android had been exposed to Hank at his worst, but had been devoid of even the comfort the dog provided.

Hank sobbed, combing his fingers through the thick fur on his companion’s nape. “I fucked up, buddy. I fucked up so horribly bad…”

The dog just whined, putting his head on the Lieutenant’s leg. His eyes were almost pleading, trying to understand why his owner was so distressed and wanting to help the human with all his giant, compassionate heart. Or perhaps asking where was the android whom he loved just as much as Hank.

“Connor’s… N-not here. We won’t be seeing h-him… anytime soon.” Hank wiped his tears with trembling hands. He hadn’t had any drinks today. How could he, knowing that he had hurt his partner so badly, because the alcohol brought his worst streaks to the surface? Hank yearned for something strong, soft cotton to wrap around his mind and suffocate every thought screaming at him, reminding him how horrible a person he was.

But at the same time, it had been the alcohol that made him lose control, let his dangerous emotions get in the way of care towards Connor. He had been so angry at the prototype for lacking empathy , and yet  he had ignored the obvious signs of distress and suffering,  egotistically deciding to snap at the confused android, already struggling to get a grip on the world. Because Hank had felt hurt and misled. By the machine who was  _ fucking programmed to suffer _ in case of being rejected.

How could he have done that? Connor had  just been following his objective, one he had certainly not enjoyed, but had been  _ forced _ to obey. Manipulated into fulfilling. And he even had released the girl in the end, his conscience stronger than the fear of Amanda’s wrath.

Or maybe he had feared Hank? The Lieutenant was almost sure that Connor had imprinted on him as well, he already knew that CyberLife had no idea about what Connor was capable of feeling, this whole concept of his inability to understand and return love was a giant load of bullshit. Connor loved a lot of things and people, it was so utterly clear. And yet, Hank had been unable to understand that yesterday.

He had told Connor that he didn’t love him anymore. Hank had no doubts that the message had been true, now. Too late.

Connor had probably lied about it so that Amanda would forgive him. Hank buried his face in his hands as he realized that with everything he had been pouring into the prototype’s head, he had forced the poor android to choose between him and his handler. He had shown him another way, given him affection he was supposedly unable to understand, but somehow could. Then, Hank had made him disobey, undoubtedly aggravating that Amanda bitch, and when Connor had in fact let Alice go, whether it was because of Hank’s order, or because he really didn’t want to kill anyone, as he had claimed, Hank punished Connor himself, because he hadn’t even let the prototype explain himself in the red haze induced with alcohol. The android had been left on his own last night, and from all Hank had seen and knew, it was his worst nightmare.

The man stood up, not strong enough to bear it anymore. It would have been easy to just drink himself into a coma, to stop thinking about his fuckups, if not for the fact that he would have been committing the same mistake again. That he would have been succumbing to the same addiction that had let him hurt Connor.

Sumo followed him as he stumbled to the bathroom, leaning pathetically on the walls, feeling almost  physically broken under the burden of his grief. In moments like this, he wondered what good was left in the world for him, if it was still worth suffering so much to experience it. Whatever positive had happened to him since he had started feeling that need to end it all?

Connor. Connor had happened to him. And Hank was the one to manipulate the android into loving him, then disobeying CyberLife, and had punished the prototype anyway because he had thought it was the other way around. And then, after all of that, he had received a perfect coffee with chocolate topping from the android, who had ultimately gave his life to save Hank’s. He didn’t deserve it.  _ It’s so fucking unfair. _

There was no telling if the new Connor would even be  _ the _ Connor. The fucker from CyberLife could reprogram him anyway and attribute it all to Amanda. They could realize that Hank’s threats were well acted out, but hollow in reality, the Lieutenant doubted if he could even reach Elijah Kamski for questioning about the RK200’s manifesto. Not to mention his ‘revelations’ about incompetence of one idiot at CyberLife.

They could even kill Connor on spot for Hank’s boldness and the way he had regarded them. Or torture him forever, keeping his AI there and sending a mere copy, a regular android without the warm spark in his eyes, the need to pet every dog on his way, a pathetic imitation that would finally sit well with Fowler, Reed, Perkins and every other idiot unable to recognize how special and unique Connor was.

Hank didn’t see well through his tears when he opened the door to the bathroom, barely managing to hit the light switch.

Connor had hidden the gun away. Hank knew that, but he had assumed that it was probably just so that he wouldn’t  kill himself before the end of the investigation. Now he knew that everything Connor had done was more complicated. The Lieutenant shouldn’t have disappointed the android by not being able to realize how complex his motivations were.

The prototype had probably thought that he had outsmarted his partner, by finding a well obscured place for the gun. But he was an android and didn’t sweat, so had no need to use shower. But Hank did, and he had realized that the drops hitting the bottom of the bathtub had begun to sound slightly different, somewhere around the time when his revolver had vanished from its usual place. Connor couldn’t have known that Hank had seen through his attempt at hiding the weapon in the vacant space between the floor and the underside of the bathtub, behind a loose tile guarding the entrance there.

Hank stopped in the middle of the room, with his eyes trained at the spot in which he had seen his gun. He had been touched by Connor’s gesture, a throwback to the bullet he had stolen from the barrel to keep Hank safe. Thus, the Lieutenant hadn’t moved it. But it wasn’t the only reason.

If he had, Connor would have hidden it again. And the Lieutenant needed to know where the gun was.

In case he wanted to use it.

Hank closed his eyes, listening to the suffocating, all-consuming silence that filled his mind despite the quiet hum of an old light bulb above his head, the silent tapping of a leaking faucet, the distressed, worried whines and pleading barks of his dog from behind the locked door, sounding as if Sumo could actually read his thoughts. It was odd, how numb one’s mind could be when they finally made a definitive decision.

Hank turned to the left and reached for a note stuck to the mirror.

It might have been stupid, to stay in the bathroom in a moment like that one. The audio would be bad, the scenario cliché, the gun close. And yet, all that Hank had the energy for right now was pulling out his phone and dialing a number.

It was probably the biggest and the most difficult step he had ever made.

There wasn’t a wait time on the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. And when a gentle, understanding voice of someone who either really cared, or was trained so well that Hank let himself believe in his good intentions answered, he managed to say just one sentence before starting to cry again.

“I n-need help…”

* * *

Waking up after death was always a unique experience. Sometimes, after particularly violent and sudden ones, Connor would  spring up and  scurry backwards the moment he had regained enough consciousness to move. But the slow deaths, allowing for full memory upload to the finest detail, the ones when he knew he was dying were calmer. It didn’t mean they were any less distressing.

Connor was nonexistent. His processor no longer computed anything and all his thoughts had perished. It was peaceful that way. Dark, uneventful and smoothed out, but peaceful. The first clue to the fact that he would soon be required to live again was his ability to be content with this state. A single sensation within the void.

It wasn’t even a thought. Thoughts were complicated and sublimed, for now Connor was just… there, far from being able to comprehend and construct words again. He was balancing on the verge of total blankness and a spark of consciousness. It occurred to him that this place was devoid of everything his previous life had, good or bad.  Some time ago, he would  have been distraught by that fact, eager to explore every facet of the world taken away from him again. Now he came to a conclusion that it was better this way. Life was painful.

It didn’t even bother him that there was nothing recognizable in here. No android-heaven, as his owner had once said. Words and memories were flooding back into Connor’s mind, but he was too preoccupied with his apathetic train of  thought to notice his emergence from the void.  _ No heaven or hell for my kind. Or maybe just for me. _ It didn’t matter, Connor was content with this black, quiet place.

And thus he felt a pang of quivering unease as he felt something soft tickling his cheek.

_ N-no… _ He thought, trying to crawl back into himself.  _ N-not again. No more. I don’t want to live again… _ But it wasn’t his choice. Nothing ever was. He couldn’t just decide not to exist in  a world in which Hank hated him, Amanda was unsatisfied with everything he did, he wasn’t allowed to love even when he couldn’t stop and they required him to hurt others, unmoved by the fact that it was killing Connor just as much.

The prototype cracked one eye open, just to see where he was. Soft, green grass was beneath his body curled up in a tight ball on the left side, and above, on the background of peachy-pink, morning sky was a familiar outline of his new tombstone. Fifty-second, though there were only two of them in the Garden.

The place looked peaceful and welcoming, and yet, Connor still preferred the darkness of death. Amanda was somewhere there in the Garden, but Connor somehow knew her eyes were cold, even  though the bushes around bloomed shyly with first spring blossoms. After all that time spent away from her, after all that yearning and pleading, now that he had  finally been let in here , all Connor could do was close his eyes and try to ignore  the phantom bite of three bullets in his chest ; three bullets he had jumped in front of to save the human who didn’t love him anymore , but had lied otherwise.

Connor had done the opposite.

The android didn’t move for a long time, pretending that it was possible for CyberLife to leave him alone. Maybe if he played dead for long enough, they would forget about him here, or deem him defective, as he undoubtedly was, and just deactivate him, so that he wouldn’t have to stand up and kill again. No more acting  like he didn’t care, no more lies to Hank that Connor didn’t love him. No more hard choices. The only thing he was worried about was Amanda, who would have remained disappointed.

When he heard quiet shuffling of high-quality fabric in above him, he knew that this dream was impossible. Yet, he still refused to move. To the last moment, Connor tried to pretend that he could be left in peace.

“Connor. What is taking you so long?” Amanda’s voice was soft, almost affectionate. But Connor could feel the underlying, bitter tone. He should have stood up as fast as possible and  greeted her, instead he had kept her waiting. “I know you’re present. Please, open your eyes.”

Connor did, but he still didn’t move. He felt paralyzed with everything that had happened. He didn’t want to do anything anymore, desperately yearning for rest. But Amanda’s wishes were always to be granted.

She was standing over him, in a gentle patch of artificial sunlight, looking him in the eyes from above and yet, refusing to bow her regal head. Her black gown was accessorized with a cape made of pinkish, iridescent material, the shade of which danced across the color palette from bluish green to gentle peach matching the sky. A faint smile was on her full lips, but her dark eyes were, in fact, cold. “Was it so hard? To finally kill a deviant for me?”

Connor opened his mouth, conditioned to respond, but found himself unable to draw a sound. He finally just swallowed thickly, accepting yet another malfunction forcing him to stay quiet, and dropping his wide eyes to look at a bush quietly rustling in the wind behind Amanda. He still didn’t move any other muscle, glad for the fact that he had woken up already hugging himself, with knees drawn up to his chest.

It had been hard. Killing had never been easy for Connor. The only reason why he had been able to shoot the deviant in cold blood was because there had been other lives at stake. Among them, Lieutenant Anderson’s.

Amanda sighed, visibly annoyed with Connor’s inefficiency, and sat down on a pristine bench built next to Connor’s graves, looking at him with eyes  losing the shadow of softness. Before she spoke up, he briefly wondered why  she would have needed a bench in this exact place.

“We’re wasting time, Connor.”

“I kn-know.” He was embarrassed about how quiet and high-pitched his voice was. And about how he had started trembling before forcing himself to answer. “I. I w-will correct… m-myself now.”

She shook her head and pinned him down with her gaze. So much waiting for her to speak with him again , and Connor was throwing this chance away, too panicked to behave as he should have.

“Connor, please. I have a lot to speak with you  about .” She sighed again, seeing no improvement in Connor’s state. “I’m glad that you’ve provided a deviant for the facility, even if deactivated. But we haven’t met in a long time. I need to discuss your mistakes with you. There were plenty.”

“I know.” Connor mouthed, without drawing a sound this time. He had trouble breathing, but kept quiet for Amanda’s sake. She would have been so disappointed if she had known how terribly broken Connor really was. He attempted to calm himself a bit.  _ I’m in the Garden, in a safe place. Nothing bad will happen to me here. Amanda is speaking with me. I’m not alone. I’m okay. _ It helped only a little.

“Let’s start from the beginning…” She turned her head to look at the horizon, where  pale violet clouds were creeping up the pinkish sky. “Frankly speaking, Connor, I expected a bit more. One deviant is still a useful asset, but you have had at least six more chances at providing more since our last talk together. And maybe even active ones. It’s a rather poor performance on your part, don’t you agree?”

“I do.” Again, not even a whisper escaped him. Had Amanda not been looking at Connor, she wouldn’t have known that he had answered her. Her lips pressed together in displeasure were enough of an indication that he should have stopped malfunctioning as fast as possible.

“What about… the Eden Club. Did you manage to learn anything? Why did you let the deviants go?”

Connor coughed quietly, fighting his clenched throat. He needed to speak with her, mouthing answers wouldn’t be enough now. “I-I saw… I learned that they were working together, protecting each other… they… were in l-love… I was unable t-to chase after them due to my owner’s condition. I was… I prioritized his life over catching them.”

Amanda shook her head thoughtfully. “Lieutenant Anderson’s wellbeing. Not life, Connor. Not even health. He just had a concussion and wasn’t in danger of suffering any lasting trauma from his injuries. You were perfectly aware of that.”

Connor bit his lip, looking at the grass. He didn’t know what to say at that. “I… I was worried…”

“Connor, worrying about humans is not your function. You’re not an SR-300 or any other medical android. You are a deviant hunter and  _ hunting deviants _ is supposed to take priority for you.” Her voice was now just cold, reprimanding. Connor had known it was about to end that way.

“I w-will try to remember… that for the future.”

“Oh, I hope so. I noticed that the Lieutenant has become too important for you and has a tendency to disrupt your mission objectives. That is  _ unacceptable _ . We are forced to work with him, but you need to know what is your purpose. The YK500 was an easy target. Had you played that situation differently, we could have gotten a deviant AX400 and maybe even the TR400 in perfect condition. At worst, we would have lost the child unit, which is useless for the technicians anyway. Why did you let them go?” She was now piercing him with her glance. Connor shook his head, trembling again.

He attempted to speak several times, but was just unable to. What was he supposed to tell her, anyway? That he was too weak to harm a child, who wasn’t even a living being? Or that he had chosen Hank over Amanda, preferring to follow his orders instead of hers? That he didn’t want to kill or torture or do anything that involved hurting others, even if Amanda demanded that? Connor feared what his handler would do to him when he failed to answer. It was gravely disrespectful and he couldn’t stand her being angry at him anymore. He just wanted someone to be close to him.

But, to his surprise, Amanda’s voice was softer when she spoke again. “Connor, sit up, please.”

It was hard, obeying her, his arms trembled and were embarrassingly weak as he pushed himself up to kneel in front of her. But he did, even as his head  remained bowed and squeezed between his shoulders, no matter how hard he tried to take proper posture in front of the woman. He felt too hurt, too damaged in places different than his body, to keep pretending that everything was fine.

And then, Amanda did something Connor never expected she would do. She touched him, but in an entirely different way she had ever done. Previous physical contact on her part was utilitarian, it served purpose, like polite holding onto his elbow while strolling through the Garden under an umbrella, or accepting help while disembarking a small boat they sometimes used to cruise around the island. But this time, when Amanda put her hand on his cheek, Connor could feel how soft the gesture was. How warm. He looked up, totally dumbfounded, his confusion taking place of some of the horrible panic coiling deep within him.

Amanda’s eyes were concerned, questioning. Some somberness and cold was still deep within them, but it was fair, Connor had disappointed her after all. Still, she looked so different than her usual self, that Connor parted his lips in quiet awe.

“I told you once that I would always be there for you, haven’t I?” She smoothed Connor’s cheek with her thumb and smiled a bit when he nodded. “I’m concerned for you Connor. You’re not yourself lately. Troubled, lost… disturbed. I’ve seen what you were doing to gain my forgiveness…” She reached her other hand to take Connor’s, running her fingers up the inside of his forearm. Connor bit his lip and looked down again, seeing her disapproving gaze. “It is not the right way. I don’t require you to damage yourself to please me. I want something else from you, I just need you to perform your functions. Is it too much to ask for?”

It wasn’t. It wasn’t at all, Connor had been literally made for the task, suited perfectly up to it, from the hardware allowing him to be faster, stronger and more ruthless than any other android, to the code and instincts within him, making investigating,  stalking and hunting as enjoyable as they could be for a machine not supposed to derive any kind of pleasure from anything at all. Which made it all the more pathetic that he had failed every mission thrown at him. That he still preferred to harm himself  rather than someone else.

“I know that there where… distractions. Obstacles. Conflicting orders.” She sighed, dropping Connor’s hand and returning to holding her warm, soft palm to the side of his face. The prototype leaned into the touch, desperately wanting to believe that Amanda wasn’t that angry with him. Maybe she cared for Connor enough to forgive him? Even as he had failed her so many times?

“The Lieutenant hasn’t been the best role model for you. I dread the influence he has exerted, the damage he had done. It was him, whose orders you were following, while you willingly let that YK500 go, wasn’t it?” She sighed again, when Connor nodded.

“My dear… I’m afraid that his intentions were malicious all along. Look what he  has done: you almost strayed away from me completely. The Lieutenant tried to tear you from your purpose and  from me as well. He tried to sow contention between us, to make you disobey and disregard my care, all I’ve done for you… And you allowed him  to do that. Do you see how broken your software is, Connor? Are you aware  of how much  you have destroyed the connection with me?”

Connor barely managed to suppress his sobs this time. She was right, as usual. Everything she said seemed so true, so real. Connor almost choked on the bitter wave of self-hatred that flooded him. He didn’t deserve her gentle caress, the soft brush of her fingers in his hair. He didn’t deserve to see her ever again, and yet, Amanda kept letting him in, forgiving him for his mistakes.  _ She is so good to me… _

Amanda looked thoughtful as she turned her head gracefully to observe the horizon, now covered in misty clouds. “But you have learned your lesson, haven’t you, Connor? You saw how it feels to trust someone you should not have been close to. The Lieutenant is unstable, incompetent and petty. He was trying to do what, actually? Use you as a substitute for his dead son? Maybe manipulate you and then destroy your software with conflicting messages and fake kindness to  get revenge on you as an android, since he is so fond of them?”

It hurt. What Amanda was saying about his owner. Connor bit his lip, remembering how happy he had been when the Lieutenant laughed at his jokes, how golden it had felt to have his hair ruffled by the man. How warm his eyes had been when he  praised Connor for the tiniest of things, how different the Lieutenant had been from all the other humans who  were either  hurting him to condition him the right way or were spitting at his sight due to the LED on his temple or blue triangles on his jacket.

But she was right. She was always right. Connor never should have trusted anyone apart from her.

He closed his eyes and bowed his head slightly, allowing Amanda to pet his hair as he kneeled in front of her. His hander’s hand still wasn’t as affectionate and playful as the Lieutenant’s, her caress felt  like both a physical contact for him to lean into and a gesture of domination, reminding him of his place. Again. Everything Amanda did was graceful and decisive. Rigorist. Stern.

“It doesn’t matter right now, he failed anyway. Because you  _ can’t feel anything _ , Connor, you can’t be manipulated, since you  _ have no such thing as emotions _ .” She put immense pressure on those words. Connor nodded along, Amanda was always right. It must have been true.

“I’m glad that you’ve made up your mind, Connor. But, it is not going to make me forget about your misdeeds.” Her hand stilled within the prototype’s hair, gripping  it decisively. It wasn’t exactly brutal, but her grip was firm and painful, putting him in his place, where he belonged. Connor gasped quietly, surprised by the sudden change. But he had no intention or power to do anything at all. Everything had left him. He was too broken to do anything but  follow orders. He knew he deserved pain for what he had done.

“Your malfunctions were very excessive. You keep running away from me, letting yourself destabilize, ruining our bond. I cannot even reach you as easily and frequently as I’ve once been doing. And it’s entirely caused by you and your choices. If you do not stop  destroying your software, I might have to reprogram you soon.”

“Yes, Amanda.” Connor said hollowly, with his eyes buried in the grass beneath them. He didn’t quite remember anything about his last reprogramming, only a strange, horrifying feeling of hollowness and loss. But then Amanda had taught him that he couldn’t really feel at all and it had gone away. Why did he keep forgetting her lessons? Why had he allowed himself to cut Amanda off, stray away?

“For now, I need to punish you for the latest events. You’ve been underperforming. I expect better from the most advanced prototype in existence.” She extended her other hand,  holding the familiar pruner in front of his eyes.

Connor felt first drops of cold spring rain on his back and shoulders as Amanda’s hand withdrew from his hair. He accepted the tool, heavy and punishing in his grip. This was his reality, no matter how much he wanted to escape it, no matter how sweet his dream of being cared for in a different way had been, no matter how intensively he yearned for that black void that was so peaceful, but never permanent. Connor needed to accept  the facts.

The Lieutenant had once said that there were different kinds of love.

At least Amanda’s was real.

* * *

Hank wasn’t able to focus on his job too well. His hands trembled and if it hadn’t been for his grief and terrible anxiety gnawing at him, the Lieutenant would undoubtedly have been insufferable as a result of alcohol withdrawal. Currently, he was hunched over his desk, trying not to die from the pain tearing his stomach apart and ignore the fever eating him alive while an open report was glaring at him from his terminal.

His hand made outings in steady intervals to the drawer in which he had kept his pocket flask, and Hank was glad that he had gotten rid of the object as soon as he had appeared at the station this morning. His resolve was strong, but now, when the symptoms were hitting him hard, the Lieutenant wasn’t sure if he would have been resilient enough to keep himself from taking a sip if he had had even a little bit of vodka with him.

A few officers cast him weird glances, which was totally understandable, considering he currently looked like a bum unable to collect enough money for another bottle, sitting in the middle of a police station, trying to do the job of the decorated officer he had once been. The view must have been laughable, but Hank couldn’t have been farther from a good mood right now, as he heard his blood thrumming in his ears.

He finally decided to stand up, fighting nausea, needing a distraction from his pathetic state. Hank would have been able to kill for a drink right now, but at the same time he had a strong desire to do nothing but end his own life. Quite an appealing dilemma, but he couldn’t act on either of those urges. There was someone who needed him, and the Lieutenant had sworn to himself that he would be there for that person.

Connor didn’t have anyone else. Maybe Amanda, but she was an AI programmed to do nothing but punish and manipulate him. Hank was currently suffering immensely from his maybe a little reckless and probably quite delirious decision to stop drinking altogether at once, but it was nothing in comparison to how he felt when he thought about the prototype’s life.

The internet had said that  the immediate break of his addiction wouldn’t kill him, so Hank had been determined to push himself to the limit, partially to prove how much he really cared and partially to punish himself for what he had done to the poor android. Connor didn’t deserve to be treated like that, he needed support, maybe even more than Hank himself, but the human had been  too blind to see that. Yet,  however determined the Lieutenant might have been to withstand the effects of withdrawal , it did little to help the fact that it was so much more painful and hard than he had anticipated. Hank ran a trembling hand through his sweaty hair as he exited the station to  get some fresh air, thinking that maybe he had underestimated the gravity of his problems.

Several people had been watching him on his way out, but no one joined him for a long while, when Hank propped his arms on railings guarding the edges of a small terrace in front of the entrance to the precinct. He took a deep breath of Detroit’s cold, polluted air and let his eyes wander over grey outlines of buildings drowning in morning fog.

It had been two days since Connor’s death and it hadn’t been easy for Hank. The night it happened, the Lieutenant had been in such a bad mental state that he had actually wanted to commit suicide. Not risked it,  _ wanted _ . Hank had been reckless for a long time before, having lost all hope and joy in life, but his death, even if probable, had never been certain throughout many evenings of his Russian Roulette matches. Hank had always had five empty chambers apart from the one loaded with  a bullet, because he didn’t have the ultimate resolve to kill himself. But two days ago, he had been a hair from filling all of them and blasting his brains out, crushed under the horrible burden of his past actions and knowledge that he didn’t deserve to live.

The only thing that had made him reach for the note Connor had left him, instead of the weapon, was the need to make up for his mistakes, to apologize to the android and doing everything in  his power to protect  Connor from the people who were hurting him. How he was going to do that, the Lieutenant had no idea. But whatever his plan was, he needed to be alive to fulfill it.

Hank’s nose wrinkled at  the smell of cigarette smoke. He had no intention of becoming a passive smoker and falling from one addiction’s clutches to another’s. Lung cancer could kill him as surely as a destroyed liver, so the man turned to head back into the precinct in order to run away from whoever followed him here to enjoy a break from work. And he froze, because he saw  none other than Gavin Reed, equally as miserable as he had been all the time lately, with a freshly lit cigarette in his hand and eyes buried in the ground, but still stealing unsure glances at Hank.

“What the fuck are you looking at, huh?” Hank felt no remorse for being an asshole to the Detective. The Lieutenant was irritated and suffering from withdrawal, so naturally more prone to being aggressive, and despite the fact that he was trying to keep it civil towards anyone else, who didn’t need a hostile drunk on their way, Reed deserved every little bit of venom Hank had.

The younger man didn’t answer at first, seemingly unsurprised by the Lieutenant's outburst. He looked like he was prepared for far more than a few hostile words and resigned to it. “I wanted to check on you.”

Hank laughed joylessly.  _ Now, that’s fucking rich. _ “I didn’t  ask for your false concern. Now get outta here before I turn you into a bloody pulp. Your face is the last thing I need to see right now.”

But Reed didn’t move, observing Hank with a strange, dead look in his grey eyes. He looked like he ached somewhere, as he silently took a puff of his cigarette, moving his gaze from Hank’s face to the buildings behind him.

“Why do you hurt so much?” He said finally, but his voice was different than the one that belonged to  the previously aggressive, snide Reed . Gavin was perfectly aware of what had happened two days ago, everyone was. The sentence that had left his mouth could well have been read as a taunt, a cruel joke or a rhetorical question if not for the delivery. Reed’s voice was husky, hoarse, hollow. Combined with the emotional baggage Gavin had never been able to conceal well, it sounded almost desperate. So desperate , in fact, that it made Hank stop for a minute and abandon his thoughts revolving around the most efficient and ratty ways of making the Detective fuck off, and take a closer look at the man.

It was also clear that Reed wasn’t asking about Hank, despite the way he had worded his question. He kept staring into the distance, clearly engrossed in something else  other than Hank’s emotional state right now. And his gaze was empty. Hopeless.

Hank  raised an eyebrow and spoke, still not withholding any of his hostility towards the Detective. Reed wasn’t an empathetic man and thus he deserved no empathy, even in this clearly broken state. “What the hell are you getting’ at?”

“He’s just a machine.” Reed muttered, still staring into the distance, bringing the cigarette closer to his lips. Hank saw red, even despite the hesitation in Gavin’s voice.

“Listen, you motherfucker.” He spat dangerously low, approaching the man with an authentic will to kill. He slapped Gavin’s hand, making the younger cop drop the cigarette, and stomped on it before the Detective could even think about picking it up again. Then, in a fluid motion, Hank grabbed Reed’s  lapels and shoved him at the brick wall behind him, uncaring if the force he used was dangerous or not. “Don’t you fucking  _ dare _ to speak about Con-“

And then he froze, seeing Reed’s face from up close now. At this point, anyone who had known Reed for more than a few weeks, would expect him to snarl, spit in Hank’s face or punch him, but Gavin looked almost unmoved by the aggression targeted at him. Not in a brave way, apprehension and fear was quite obvious on his face, but he looked almost like he... just didn’t care anymore. As if whatever was gnawing at him had already taken all his will to fight back away.

And then Hank realized something else.

Gavin Reed had called Connor  _ ‘he’ _ .

“What the actual fuck…” Hank dropped the man, who begrudgingly straightened himself, muttering a curse and pressing his lips in a thin line. He looked like he had just now realized what he had said and was quite embarrassed about it, but knew that there was no use  denying it. And it all clicked in the Lieutenant’s aching head at once, the remorse in Gavin’s eyes at hearing about the extent of Connor’s injuries, his pale face and strange reaction when he had heard Markus’ speech of freedom, the weirdly unfitting body language while he had been asking about Hank but wanted to hear another answer.

“You selfish, egoistic son of a bitch. You don’t care about me. Or anyone else. You just want to know how to stop feeling so guilty  _ yourself _ , huh? Now that androids don’t look so inhuman anymore. Now that you’ve realized that Connor  _ is _ something more than just a hunk of metal.” It wasn’t even a question, and Reed made no effort  to answer . He stared at the ground, at his trampled cigarette.

“He  _ is just a machine _ .” Gavin said again after a moment, still not meeting Hank’s eyes and sounding like he was more trying to convince himself than state a fact. “I m-mean ‘ _ it’ _ . Pheck…” There was a sigh from the Detective and he rubbed his face, Hank noticing that the younger man’s hands were trembling.  _ Stressed, aren’t we? Oh, poor little thing… _

“It’s not that, not only. I mean… I’m n-not feeling guilty, it wasn’t me. The restroom, I mean. I was just… I’m n-not guilty. They are just… They can’t feel anything, they’re just stupid… pieces of plastic…”

“You’re the worst fucking liar I’ve ever seen. There is just one idiot of a programmer, who could match you.” Hank said, approaching Reed again with fire in his eyes. “Don’t believe a word from your loathsome snout. You wanna know how to make it stop? I’ll  tell you a secret.” Hank bowed so that their faces were mere inches away from themselves. “You can’t. You will never redeem your sins, ‘cause what you’ve done is  _ fucking unforgiveable _ . You hurt Connor beyond repair, beyond what they were able to fix and there is nothing you can do to make it right. Apologies, even if you were actually capable of  asking for forgiveness from anyone out of concern for their wellbeing, not for your own comfort, will never be enough to make up for fucking him up this badly and treating him as your punching bag throughout the entire lease. You have nothing Connor could potentially want from you and even if you had, I will never let you even remotely close to him. Frankly speaking, part of me hopes that he deviates and fucking kills you for what you did, ‘cause you don’t deserve to live. And any amount of remorse or guilt on your part isn’t going to change my opinion.” Hank seethed, poking Reed’s chest with his finger to amplify his words.

The Detective was grey on his face and by the time Hank finished speaking, he dropped his gaze at the ground again, unable to withstand the Lieutenant’s gaze. Hank shook his head, partially out of amazement at seeing the Detective, usually so bold and arrogant, now reduced to the shadow of his old self, and partially to further condemn him for what he had done. “I wish Fowler wasn’t too blind to see that it was you. I’m getting outta here, looking at you makes me want to puke.”

True to his words, Hank left to enter the station again, fighting nausea. It was a symptom of withdrawal, but the Lieutenant was eager to attribute it to the sight of the Detective just as much.

He needed to sit down. Everything he was going through, from the  physical strain of the lack of alcohol to mental pressure connected with losing Connor was extremely exhausting. Hank rubbed his face, trying to steady his swimming vision, but when he opened his eyes again, he saw Fowler in front of himself.

“Hank. What is happening with you? You look terrible…” The Captain was clearly concerned with him and when Hank paid a bit closer attention to his posture, he noticed that the Captain wasn’t carrying any documents or in a hurry to get anywhere, so it seemed as though he had left his office specifically to check up on him. “Are you running a fever? Why are you even at work in such a state?”

“ ‘Cause my therapist said that I should try to stick to my usual routine to keep depression at bay. Some shitty motivational talk about ‘work helping to keep stress down ’ and ‘feeling a part of a group’.” Hank said tiredly, deciding to share with his friend the changes in his life he had made. Maybe Jeffrey would stop worrying so much if he knew that Hank, for the first time in a very long time, had a strong drive for altering his lifestyle for the better. And maybe he would stop investigating his bond with Connor and let them be in peace.

The Captain looked quite shocked at the unusual bomb dropped by Hank so casually, but his astonishment quickly morphed into a hesitant, but genuine smile. “You’re… You are attending therapy again? Hank, that’s wonderful…”

“Yeah, uh, thanks.” He scrubbed his nape awkwardly, silently glad that Fowler opted for not doing a major even out of his confession. Even though the Lieutenant’s will to change was honest, and he had already been trying to  apply some of the therapist’s advice to his life , he still struggled with talking openly about his feelings and problems, therefore bringing more attention than needed to his steps was difficult for Hank. He was glad that Fowler understood that.

Instead, the Captain chose to focus on yet another problem. “Okay, I’m happy for you but it still doesn’t explain why you are here sick. You are only allowed to work if it doesn’t have an effect on your health…”

Hank laughed, darkly amused. “You are aware that I’m on homicide, right? That tends to have a toll on people… But anyway, I’m not sick. I just haven’t drank for like… three days now. No, don’t look at me like that.” Hank stopped Jeffrey before he could say how proud he was. The Lieutenant was already fed up with this topic. “I know that you care, all right? Ben told me, it’s fine. Now, please, let me just… get back to my desk.”

Fowler was still smiling, and his gaze had a kind of softness rarely seen in his eyes as he spoke. “Hank, I’m really glad that you… decided to make changes. I really am. But I cannot let you get back to work, you look like you’re gonna faint any minute… Go home, I can ma-“

“No. No I’d rather… not be alone right now.” Hank said, maybe a bit too quickly. He had gotten rid of the revolver, not entirely, but it was no longer as easily accessible as it had been before. Still the Lieutenant didn’t really trust himself, not only with  self-destructive behaviors, but also with alcohol. All hidden stashes at the precinct had been cleared this morning, but nothing was stopping him from galloping to the closest liquor store, apart from his iron will and the distractions found at work.

Jeffrey just eyed him, concern overtaking his gaze again as he rubbed his chin deep in thought. “All right… I mean, shit I don’t know what to do with you. Maybe I could drive you to a medical clinic instead? You look like could use some meds to help you deal with… that.” He gestured vaguely at Hank, visibly unsure how to proceed with him.

“I’m fine, all right? It’s still not that bad.” Hank shook his head and combed a trembling hand through his hair again. “Withdrawal is no fun, but I still have time for fainting and seizures. We’ll come to that.” Fowler didn’t look as amused as Hank felt and he didn’t join in the cynical laughter the Lieutenant let out.

“Hank, you’re not very reassuring…”

“Relax, what I’m saying is that I still can work. I promise to let you know if I needed help.”

“That’s nice and all, but I’m still assigning Miller to watch you. If you wanna stay here, he will sit at your android’s desk and be your partner until you get better… or worse…” Fowler furrowed his brows and pressed his lips together, visibly strained. “Hank, just tell me one thing… Don’t get me wrong, I couldn’t be happier that you’re battling your addiction, but… Are you sure you… can do that so, um, abruptly? Detox can be a bitch…”

Hank chuckled. “Believe me, I already know. I have a strong motivation, though.”

“Okay…” Fowler sighed heavily and patted Hank on his shoulder. “Fine, just… don’t push yourself too hard. And I’m always there if you ever wanna talk.”

Hank nodded and muttered his thanks, silently grateful for Chris being assigned to him. The young Officer was a good, compassionate person and the Lieutenant was grateful that he could have someone to talk to while he was still coming to terms with the silence that had been around ever since Connor had died. Hank missed the android and awaited the day he would be contacted about the prototype’s reactivation. He dreaded that moment, the fear that Connor would no longer be the same android he cherished and loved kept Hank awake at  night . But he also needed to see Connor again more than anything in the world.

Next Monday, December ninth, four days later, his wishes were granted.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D Hank is doing better! Do you think that this sacrifice is going to redeem him? Will Connor forgive him this time?
> 
> How did you like Gavin? A long way to being a decent person in front of him, I think that an instant 180 degrees doesn't suit his character. It would be unrealistc, but destroying his mind with guilt and feelings he has never been good at controlling? Who is with me?
> 
> Amanda continues to make an emotional, manipulated mess out of Con, well, that one is going to be interesting. She is always right, after all...


	39. Different Kinds of Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some wounds take a long time to heal.  
> And some never do.
> 
> It was hard to tell which one was which, but Hank suspected that Connor was covered in both kinds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello :3  
> A chapter you've all been waiting for.  
> Thank you SO MUCH for 400+ kudos! You really motivate me to up my digital painting-game <3 I hope you like this illustration, it was sweet to draw :3

The dog roses kept plaguing the Garden. Completely disregarding red, royal ones struggling to survive under their regime, pink flowers were running rampant all over the island, despite Connor’s efforts to root them out. Their color was picking up in hue too, now almost close to magenta, they challenged sublimed elegance of the rest of the plants here, aggravating Amanda immensely. Connor thought they were beautiful, but he couldn’t trust his opinions anyway. They were fake, just like everything else he felt.

It was really painful this time, but Connor deserved every little bit of it, for what he had done to disappoint Amanda. Whereas the first time she had cut the roses had been more scary than agonizing and left him with an uneasy feeling of hollowness, as if the woman had been removing parts of him he hadn’t even been aware of having, now it was so much different. Every snip of the pruner brought a flare of hot pȃ̫in and choking f͙̖́̈e̓͟ar̞̦͋̂, it felt like cutting off something _i̱͋m̭̐p̩͖̄̃o̓͢r̢̛t͍̣̠̀̽̚ạ̛n̜̚t̡͚͕̑̆͒,_ willingly mutilating his body, amputating limbs he relied on in his everyday life. It was only a rose, but Connor felt almost as bad as he had when he had been torturing other androids in the bowels of CyberLife. Even though the pouring, freezing-cold rain was supposed to be a part of the punishment as well, the prototype was grateful for it washing the tears off his face. He was sure that Amanda wouldn’t appreciate seeing him cry.

It had its bright sides too.

When Connor opened his new eyes in his new, foreign body, he had much more distracting things to think about than how wrong it felt to have his biocomponents rearranged to house his redesigned thirium pump regulator and chest plating reinforced to protect the parts previously destroyed by the bullets. His hands were changed too, so that they were more resistant to mastication, and even though they didn’t feel or look that different, Connor still had an uneasy feeling of wrongness. He asked himself briefly why he had needed to be attacked by Detective Reed and why the hydraulic press wasn’t enough for them to realize that his limbs needed alteration. But it didn’t matter anyway, and the feeling of every part of his body being unfamiliar like a prosthetic was far less engaging than the ble̝͗e̽͟ding̤̿ ̩̑wo̲̍u̫̚nd͇̓s͙̉ in his software dealt by the pruner.

So engrossing they were, in fact, that Connor hardly even noticed the world around him as three employees were preparing him for deployment a week after his last death. He had just woken up and was observing his new hands, standing quietly in the corner, trying not to think about the painfully hollow places where Amanda had rightfully made him strike. He saw a hand waving right in front of his eyes and he looked up, startled.

“Did you hear what I said?” A dark haired woman, Megan Torres, the technician frequently working at perfecting his chassis, was standing in front of him, annoyance prevalent on her face.

“W-wh… I’m sorry, c-could you repeat?” Connor stumbled over his words, speaking in a quiet, wobbly voice, resisting the urge to back further into the corner at seeing the hostility in her gaze.

“I told you to get dressed. Edwin, are its audio processors online?”

“Of course. Jesus, it’s bloody defective, that drunk is delusional…” Dr. Kerring said from the console connected to Connor’s head with several cables. “I’d reprogram it right away, or at least add a few scripts…”

His two colleagues hummed in agreement, but they did little to put Connor offline again and he was given a set of clothes instead of being prepared for software modifications. The android quickly dressed himself, not wanting to argue with them or make them any more irritated at him. Humans were always right, after all.

Connor noticed that they were a bit more harsh with him than they used to be. Even though they didn’t punish him significantly for not hearing the order the first time, Miss Torres wasn’t delicate in the slightest with removing the cables from Connor’s head ports, making him lose a grip on the sleeve he was buttoning and gasp soundlessly. She didn’t do anything else though, so the prototype assumed she had had a difficult day. Or a week.

“Has anyone called him yet?” The technician looked Connor over one last time, deciding that he was ready to step off the charging platform before deployment.

“No. I’d rather do it when the RK is already on its way. Not wise, getting that bum here again, and something tells me that he would teleport here the minute we told him that the next unit has been deployed.” A red-haired man typing something in a big computer hooked up to CyberLife’s server said.

“Fair point, Pyotr.” Dr. Kerring sighed and turned to Connor, visibly unwilling to look at the android. “RK800, perform basic movement tests for your skeletal muscles and then check the dexterity of your fingers.”

Connor had no problems with walking around the room, jumping and dodging an invisible opponent, his body was perfectly fine. It was the software that was broken and caused him to stutter as he took out a coin from a pocket next to his collar.

“The fuck is wrong with you? Why did you stop?” Miss Torres gritted her teeth and threw a clipboard she had been holding on the desk next to Dr. Kerring. The sound made Connor jump a little and tore him out of his stupor.

“I’m… ‘M s-sorry, do you… do you maybe happen t-to know where my old coin is? The one m-minted in 1994?” Connor said in a weak voice, almost too quiet to be audible. “I’d prefer-“

“Jesus fucking Christ, unbelievable.” The woman threw her hands into the air, theatrically outraged. “ _Your_ coin. You have a quarter, what are you whining about? Perform your tests and shut up!”

Connor swallowed a lump in his throat and flicked the coin into the air, performing even the hardest tricks flawlessly. There would have been no benefit out of knowing the scratches and bumps on his old one, aerodynamics of this quarter was exactly the same. And yet, Connor still felt the loss of his coin like a blow to his thirium pump.

“Maybe I should write a few lines of code to make it at least look like it could hold on?” The programmer wondered aloud, observing Connor’s actions. “Look at it. Even its LED is broken.”

“Anderson would kill us.” Connor perked up at the name of his owner, but he didn’t like how it sounded spoken by the server programmer. He usually didn’t show much emotion, but that word, he had spat with venom. “Leave it as it is, let him deal with the consequences.”

“The thing is that we are supposed to be responsible for its efficiency…”

“Ugh, face it, it has never been efficient.” Miss Torres rolled her eyes and looked at Connor, ignoring how he bowed his head, hurt by the comment. “Let’s just pack it in a cab and stamp the report, I wanna get out of here.”

Connor’s AI was hooked up to the server and his memories began to be recorded again, but the connection wasn’t fixed, which confused him. He opted, however, not to ask about it. The humans had already been irritated, additional questions wouldn’t have helped that. They ordered him to call a taxi and go to the station, hoping that he would miss the Lieutenant due to the late hour.

Connor spent the entire drive staring at the coin given to him.

It wasn’t _hï̟s̜̓_ coin. This one was minted in 2012, it had a slightly more shiny surface and a scratch on George Washington’s chin. Connor spun it on its finger, marveling at how it dared to feel the same as the quarter from 1994.

It was irrational how he missed that one. It was just a piece of metal… just like him. An object, nothing more, but it hurt so fiercely to lose it. That one had been his special coin, the comforter he had been using to cope, and a means of entertainment. That one had been his. This one wasn’t.

 _But why would they give me the same coin? It must have been a coincidence_ _last time._ Connor had been bound to lose the coin at some point. He had been bound to lose everything, because he _d̼i̖͐dn’̦̲̆̑t ̳̌͜͞ḋ̨e͖̐s̛͙͎̍erv͔̦̑͆e_ it in the first place. He was just a machine and machines had nothing of their own. Connor muffled a sob, bringing his knees up to his chest. _New coin, new body. Am I even still ‘͓̄t͙̄h̳͝è̢ Conn͇̒o͉͛r̨̍’?_

_Of course not. ‘The Connor’ has always been a lie._

Oddly enough, he couldn’t even cry anymore. Everything was just hurting numbly, but Connor was too tired to do anything about it. Amanda wouldn’t appreciate crying and it never brought comfort anyway.

Maybe Connor just had to feel that way. It probably was right, since he never felt anything else but that horrible pain he couldn’t get rid of on his own.

He lost time again. Clutching the new coin wasn’t as effective as the old one so he adapted the same technique he had in his past life, when he couldn’t deal with being present in reality anymore. He barely registered how the taxi stopped and how he got out, walking slowly through a big parking lot near the precinct. The android only stopped when he heard his name.

“Con… Connor?”

He knew that voice so well. It was soft and pleading this time, full of emotions that made his metaphorical heart run soft, even though he knew that it was all a lie. The person approached him and placed a hand on his shoulder, so warm and reassuring. So well acted out.

“Lieutenant Anderson.” Connor mumbled with still bowed head, unable to raise his eyes higher than his shoes. “Good evening.”

“Con, is that you? The real you, _the_ Connor? D-did they do something? H-hey?” The man’s voice was getting increasingly anxious as Connor didn’t answer. There was no such thing as ‘ _the Connor’_ , why would he even have bothered opening his mouth... Maybe it was rude not to react to a human’s question, but the android was far away. Somewhere where it didn’t hurt so much.

“Oh God, Con… Please look at me…”

Connor shook his head weakly, feeling strained under the pressure. He would eventually have to obey, but wanted to delay that moment as long as he could. It was all too much - cutting roses, words that were not supposed to hurt but did, demands that he shouldn’t have any feelings - it was all too much to handle. Why did no one notice that he was breaking?

The human shuffled in front of him, reaching into one of his pockets quickly. “W-wait, Con, I’ve got something for you… Connor, look. I… I hid it for you, so that they wouldn’t… take it away. I kept it for w-when you get back….”

He slowly pushed his hand into Connor’s line of sight, and the android’s eyes were immediately drawn to a silvery circle on the human’s palm.

“My coin…” Connor whispered quietly, picking the object up and running his thumb across the familiar bums and scratches, through the line of numbers making up the date of 1994. Despite everything, a small smile appeared on his face. At least one fragment of everything Connor was attached to had survived. Even if it was just a tiny little quarter.

He heard a heavy sigh of relief from his owner. “Oh, kid… I’m so happy you’re back…” The voice was so heavy with affection that it was hard not to believe in the manipulation. “I’m sorry you didn’t get it earlier, I bet you were devastated to have another coin… but I took it to be sure that those fuckers wouldn’t lose it. I know this one is special. Connor, please, look at me…”

 Connor did, and despite the fact he knew that _worrying about humans wasn’t his function_ , he felt a pang of concern as he saw how pale the man was, how deep the shadows under his eyes were, and how feverish he looked. It must have shown on his face, because the Lieutenant smiled a little.

“I missed you so much, Con. I’m so _, so unbelievably sorry,_ I fucked up _hard_ … But I need to speak with you outside of the reach of cameras.” The human looked up and gestured with his eyes at a glass bulge on the ceiling above them. “Come with me.”

Connor couldn’t object again. It was a direct order and even though he suspected that staying faithful to the promises he had made to Amanda would be difficult if he spoke with the Lieutenant, he had to endure. Machines could not just choose not to follow orders…

The human led him to a desolate place in the parking lot, where they stood in a blind spot of the surveillance. The Lieutenant turned to him and there was so much pain in his eyes that Connor immediately felt some as well.

“Connor. I’m so sorry. I… I know that I’ve already said that, but… You have no idea how I wish I could take back everything I said to you that night…” He paused to take a deep breath and Connor could swear that he saw the human’s eyes gleam with tears. “I w-wasn’t thinking straight. The… I tend to do… the dumbest things w-when I’m drunk… I promise you I’ll never do that again…”

“I don’t believe you.” Connor said quietly, afraid that he would be punished for voicing his thoughts. It was disrespectful, humans were always right and not taking their word was one of the worst errors in his reasoning he could experience.

But the man just nodded, inhaling a shaky breath. “I kn-know. You’re right…” Connor almost flinched hearing his owner’s voice quiver like that. The man was always so strong and bold, Connor never would have thought to hear him break down.

The Lieutenant stepped closer and put a hand on Connor’s shoulder hesitantly, as if unsure if the android wouldn’t shake it off. Connor didn’t, but his confusion only grew. He had to remind himself again that the man was lying. It was hard to remember.

“Y-you have every right to call me out, Con. I w-was… I’m so fucking sorry… I should have listened to you, I shoulda stopped a l-ong time ago… I was s-so fucking stupid…” Connor saw tears stream down his owner’s face and he parted his lips, completely taken aback. What was the Lieutenant talking about? Humans were never wrong, never stupid, it was the worst manipulation he had ever heard. The Lieutenant was trying to play it out as a mistake, but Connor knew that he had planned it all along. Amanda had said so and humans were so much more superior to androids, a misstep on their part was impossible. _U-unles̥̘̍͘s̜̆ i̯̒ť͈ ̛̼ī͈͙͍̮̽͆͋s̢͔̦̪̈͑̉͠… No, it can’t be._ Paradoxes were making Connor’s processor hurt.

At the same time, everything the human did seemed genuine. Connor was equipped with the knowledge of how to tell if a person was being truthful or not, and even though there was no such thing as a flawless lie detector, the android usually had no problems with seeing through people in interrogations. It was all so strange that Connor felt anxiousness coil his core all over again.

“I-I don’t understand…” He was embarrassed of how weak his voice was. Connor couldn’t wrap his head around everything that was happening. Amanda’s story would have explained the unusual change of heart the Lieutenant had undergone, from hating the androids with all his might, to treating Connor almost as an equal, only to drop him hard again, just when he had started to lean into the love he had seemingly been given. But it wouldn’t have covered why the human was shedding genuine tears right now, when he had already succeeded in utterly destroying Connor.

His breath quickened and he couldn’t stop his lip from quivering, looking in the eyes now so warm, but still seeing the anger that _had be ~~en therȇ͚ a̼̍ ẃ̢̹͂ḛ̌e͍͕͊͠k ̭͖͗͘å̜͍͚̪̔̍͘g͖̦͓͇̏̕͡ọ͈̙̽͌͛̍͢~~ _. Connor couldn’t forget that sight. But at the same time, this moment felt so real. The Lieutenant must have been a great actor. Or not. Maybe he was telling the truth?

“Connor… I really do love you, okay? I’m s-sorry I told you that I didn’t. I’m s-so fucking sorry… It’s not true, it will never be true, whatever will happen… I was… I was stupid, I w-wasn’t thinking about you.. I w-was demanding empathy from you, not s-seeing that I was a fucking egoist myself… I… I didn’t understand you… Your motives a-and what they’ve done to you… I’m s-so fucking sorry…” The android didn’t resist when the man pulled him closer into a gentle hug, even though it was the last thing he had expected.

 No one had ever been so close to Connor, except maybe Sumo, but he was a dog. Connor had spent a lot of time wondering where he stood in hierarchy in reference to animals other than humans. Probably slightly lower, due to the fact that he ultimately wasn’t alive. But a human was so unfathomably higher than him that the prototype assumed that ruffling his hair would be the most he would ever get. It could be nice and warm, affectionate like his owner’s gestures, but it could also be used as a way to put him in his place, like Amanda had done. It wasn’t breaking boundaries, already established dynamics of master and a servant. A hug was.

Hugging someone meant more, it was a token of care, solely designed for comfort and showing positive emotions. The way the Lieutenant wrapped his hands around Connor’s stiff form, shaking with the force of his sobs, how he gently rubbed the prototype’s back, made Connor break a little again. It was undoing. And he was all the more painfully aware that he couldn’t return the gesture, even though he dreamed of nothing more.

Amanda had told him not to. He couldn’t betray her again. Even though Connor knew that she couldn’t hear or see what he was doing outside of the investigations anymore, Connor couldn’t let himself fall into the trap of trusting someone else again. Especially a person who had made a habit out of getting drunk and was known for his tendency to be aggressive in that state.

So he remained unmoved, painfully ordering himself not to relax into the embrace, even as his own tears pricked his eyes. The android hoped that the Lieutenant would at some point stop trying to get Connor to trust him again, pull back and write the prototype off, abandoning his plans regardless of their intention. Whether they were malicious and designed to hurt Connor even more, or the affection was genuine and the Lieutenant was telling the truth. The android didn’t want to know anymore. Life was painful, in its good and bad, and Connor yearned for being nothing more than an unfeeling tool in Amanda’s hands, quick to return to that comfortable state of non-existence every so often.

But then, the Lieutenant said something that made Connor open his eyes and pull away slightly to check if he really had uttered those words. “I… t-told you those horrible things, ‘cause… I w-was drunk, y’know that… But n-never ag-gain… I promise. I’ve been s-sober f-for a week and… and it wasn’t easy… especially w-without you around, but I’m tryin’, okay, Con? I r-really am. I l-love you so much… I’ll n-never h-hurt you again… I swear…”

It was true. When Connor scanned the man, he detected no alcohol whatsoever. What’s more, the fever, heightened blood pressure and other immunological reactions the Lieutenant was displaying were a perfect fit for withdrawal symptoms.

“I kn-know that… That you may think I’m delirious, and y-yes, I-I was, but it’s better now. I swear I’m present here with you. I’m not hallucinating. I love you, Connor, and that is true, I’m n-not… I’m not raving… I l-love y-“

He was cut off by Connor, as it was his turn to hug the human. He tried his best not to break down as he threw his hands around his owner’s neck and buried his face into the human’s jacket to muffle any sounds that wanted to escape him. He was not allowed to cry, embracing the Lieutenant was already such a grave violation of the fragile peace with Amanda that earned Connor her forgiveness. But he couldn’t stop himself from melting into the hug, now buried within the warmth of the human, who started rubbing his back again, shaking and crying once he comprehended Connor’s reaction. The android couldn’t do anything else.

Because Hank was telling the truth.

He had been so adamant about drinking, he had treated alcohol as his last freedom, last chance to escape remorse and guilt after the death of his son. The fact that he was willing to give it up for Connor, that his promises about not ever hurting him again weren’t empty, just showed how much he cared. If he hadn’t done anything to change, the android wouldn’t have believed him, someone addicted to alcohol would always risk losing control. But Hank had already made progress, the hardest steps on his way out of the dark.

Connor shook with the need to voice his gratefulness and let all of his emotional malfunctions out, but he resisted all of it, muffling his quiet sniffles with the material of his owner’s coat. What he couldn’t stop, however, were tears that stained the fabric, spilling from his eyes despite his efforts not to cry. But Hank didn’t seem to mind or even notice, as he was busy with his own tears and smoothing the back of Connor’s head, so much softer than Amanda.

“I p-prom-mise. I d-do. I swear on m-my life. I’m tryin’, I’ll… I’ll get better…” His voice broke even more as he asked. “W-will you… Will you ever f-forgive me?”

“Yes. I do, n-now. I forgive you.” Connor whispered quietly, but the man heard him well. He sobbed harder and tightened the embrace, running his hand through Connor’s hair. He didn’t grip them, didn’t put a pruner in the android’s hand, didn’t punish him for breaking the boundaries of a slave. Humans were always right, but the Lieutenant was wrong about one thing.

There were different kinds of love. But not all of them felt similar.

They stayed like this for so long that Connor began to worry about his owner’s body temperature dropping too much and was forced to raise his face from the crook of the human’s neck where he had settled, cherishing the warmth given back to him. Now, when the prototype calmed a bit, he was hesitant and afraid to embrace it all, not because he didn’t trust Hank, but because he had promised to Amanda that he was done with being close to anyone but her. For now, it was just one time, but Connor was afraid that if she found out, the next punishment would be so much worse than just cutting dog roses.

“H-Hank, you’re going to get cold. Let’s go.”

“Yeah… Okay.” Despite the fact that he agreed to move, Hank kept holding Connor gently, breathing hard through his nose. The android didn’t want to stop either, it all felt so good… “Sumo is going to jump through the roof, he missed you so much… Come on. God, I’m so glad you’re back, son.”

 

* * *

 

Hank was reluctant to let Connor go. It was almost too much to bear, the whole week of blaming himself for the android’s death, for treating him so badly that he had died believing he wasn’t loved, the apprehension that once Connor would return, he wouldn’t be the same. And then the relief at seeing that those CyberLife idiots had kept their end of the bargain, but fear that Connor wouldn’t forgive Hank for what he had done. The human himself wasn’t sure if he would have, had he been in Connor’s place.

So it made him all the more happy when the prototype had in fact returned the hug and said that he accepted Hank’s apology.

They talked the whole way back to the house, Hank recounting what had happened throughout the last week at the station, and in his own life too. Connor asked a lot of difficult questions and demanded truths hard to voice from Hank, but the human answered as much as he could without worrying the android too much. Hank didn’t want to lie to his partner anymore, he had sworn to himself that the days of misunderstandings on both parts were over.

“My therapist said that she would like to meet you… Claims that it’d be beneficial to my progress…” Hank said hesitantly when Connor asked about the help the man had been receiving. Hank hoped that Connor would understand the lies Hank had to come up with to protect them both. He had no doubt that the smart android would catch the wind sooner or later, it was better to get it over with as fast as possible.

Sure enough, Connor raised an eyebrow, bewildered. “Me? Why?”

“’Cause you’re important to me and I was as truthful as possible during the talks. I told her that you’re my partner at work and that you played a big role in my… change of heart. That you’re basically the reason why I’m doing all of this… not to put too much pressure on you, though…” Hank sighed. It was hard to navigate his motives both staying faithful to his own feelings but not making an emotional hostage out of Connor. The Lieutenant was certain that it was the last thing the android needed after what Amanda had been doing to him.

Connor was silent for a long while, his LED circling a thoughtful yellow. “But... I’m an android. Why would she take me into consideration?”

Hank sighed. _Here we go…_ “Uh, I gotta tell you something. I said I have been as truthful as possible… Which means mostly. But not entirely.”

Connor pressed his lips into a thin line, discouraged at hearing that. “Hank, it is important that you share everything potentially significant with your therapist. She won’t be able to help you if you keep warping the truth…”

“The thing is, Con, that I don’t really have a choice.” Hank said quietly. “I wish it was different, but caring about an android is considered… an abnormality. It could classify as a mental aberration, and while a typical white collar worker could get away with that, an alcoholic Lieutenant with depression and on active duty wouldn’t be so lucky. And Fowler’s already watching my every step, worried that I’m going crazy… But I get where you’re coming from, and thus I told her as much as I could to let the therapist understand my situation…”

It didn’t take long for Connor to connect the dots. “…She thinks I’m a human.”

“Yeah.” Hank sighed again, slowing down to turn the street. “I… I’m sorry Con… I didn’t have to lie that much though.”

Connor was silent for a few moments, his face not giving away much. But when he finally spoke, Hank was relieved to hear that his voice was soft and forgiving. “It’s all right, Lieutenant. I mean… It doesn’t bother me. I wish you didn’t have to lie, but I don’t want… my species affiliation… to affect your career. And I want you to get the best help possible. I will do everything in my power to support you.”

Hank didn’t miss how hesitantly Connor had addressed his belongingness, nor that he had used the very words Markus had while describing the deviants and androids in general. He shook that off as unimportant though.

“What did you tell her about us?”

“The truth, mostly.” Hank smiled slightly, casting Connor a fond look as they stopped at a red light. “Everything in the therapy is confidential, so she can’t disclose that to anyone unless I commit a crime. Which I don’t intend to do. She doesn’t run any background checks and all she knows is my name and that I’m working on the force, but she has no idea who or where. So don’t worry, son, the therapist isn’t going to see through my bullshit.” The human reassured Connor, whose LED kept spinning yellow.

The android nodded, seemingly satisfied with what he heard. Hank saw a flash of blue in the reflection in the window and thought again about how much he had missed that color.

“So… I told her that you’ve been assigned to me as a partner and we didn’t really get along at first, though it wasn’t your fault. I blamed it on my past, biased opinions and bigotry. No lies here. I told her that you grew on me and changed my views on a lot of things, and… that I care about you a lot now…” Hank sighed again, trailing off as he realized that he was nearing a subject he hadn’t really had a chance to discuss with Connor yet.

The android seemingly noticed Hank’s hesitation, as he turned his head to watch him closer, waiting for the human to elaborate.

“Before I continue, you need to know that… I spoke with your programmers after the Stratford Tower. And I know a few things about your development now… I understand you better. Now, I… I had to somehow explain to the therapist that you live with me. So… Uh…” Hank ran his fingers through his hair, wishing that they had had more time in the car to discuss it, but he was about to park in front of his home so the risk of Connor escaping right now was quite high, and Hank feared that the prototype, manipulated as he was, wouldn’t appreciate the fiction he had constructed to match the truth.

“I told her that your family situation isn’t the best either. That I allowed you to stay at my home to escape the abusive environment until you’d be financially stable enough to afford renting an apartment of your own.”

Connor blinked at Hank, tilting his head. The human dedicated a few seconds to think about how ironic it was that Connor frequently complained about Hank being difficult to read, but now his own micro expressions weren’t making it easy either. “I guess that is where the fiction begins.”

The Lieutenant withstood his glance. “Partially yes. But it isn’t entirely untrue either.”

Connor opened his mouth to say something, but decided otherwise and just exited the car stiffly. Hank followed him, feeling dread pooling in his stomach again. The way Connor’s demeanor had changed slightly, how he had closed off a bit, but was determined to hide it, only confirmed Hank’s suspicions that the talk they were about to have wasn’t going to be pleasant. But it had to be done.

“Connor, listen…” Hank closed his car and approached the android already moving towards the door. “I wanna be clear with you. I’ve drawn my conclusions and I’m not gonna treat you like that night ever again, but to make sure that there are no more misunderstandings… That requires both me and you being translucent...”

Connor stopped and turned stiffly towards Hank, keeping careful watch on him. The Lieutenant flinched at the lack of trust in his eyes. He wasn’t angry, or annoyed by the suggestion that CyberLife didn’t treat him well. He looked scared.

“I cannot share certain things with you, Lieutenant. I apologize, but it would mean me violating important parts of my programming.” His voice was quiet and emotionless. At least it would appear so, to somebody who had never heard how emotive Connor could be at times. There was a frightened undertone in that statement that stung Hank badly.

“Connor… I-“

“No!” Hank’s heart broke as he saw how panicked Connor was underneath his mask. “N-no. I cannot share certain things with you, Lieutenant. I apologize, but it would mean me violating important parts of my programming.” He said again, with the same modulation and the same fearful undertone.

“Son, let m-“

“I cannot share certain things with yo-“ Hank cut him off by hugging him gently again. There was definitely something wrong with Connor and the way he approached this topic. Something so broken that Hank decided to withdraw for now, to keep still fresh scars on both of their hearts unopened. He could feel that the will to rebuild the trust between them was genuine on both sides, but Hank also knew that he needed to remember how twisted Connor’s view on reality was. The android’s reaction was far beyond the worse scenarios Hank had ever considered, and his guts told him that it had something to do with Amanda. And after the recent fuckup, Hank was convinced that his instincts were worth listening to.

“Shhh, Con. Okay. I won’t force you to, I promise. Don’t tell me now, if you don’t want to. I understand. We can talk about it when you feel comfortable.” Connor still refused to relax in Hank’s embrace, but he seemed a bit calmer.

“I c-can’t… Don’t try to do that. Please, don’t try to do t-that…” Hank had no idea what the android was talking about, but he didn’t bother asking. Connor needed comfort right now, not digging deeper into his problems.

“I won’t. C’mon, It’s okay…”

Feeling that Connor’s form was still unnaturally rigid, Hank stepped back and grabbed his hands instead. Oddly enough, Connor relaxed a bit once he was away from Hank, but his eyes conveyed hurt and disappointment. He looked somber, but accepting of his fate. Hank suspected that he would need far more time to really understand what was going on in the android’s mind. And he already knew that it wasn’t pretty.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! They are finally reunited! Yay!  
> But Hank fucked Connor up too bad for that not to have any effect. And Amanda only made it worse.  
> How do you think this is going to develop? Let me know ;)


	40. 'Not Defective', 'Functional'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The truth is almost always dependent on one's point of view.  
> Therefore, one should be careful while trying to put reality into words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Today I have a chapter that has initially been a part of a longer one, but again, it would mean a 20k monster if I didn't separate them xdd  
> I hope the transition doesn't feel forced, I have a lot of important things to say in that one, but they don't have immediate effects like in the other chapters, and are rather established to be significant in the long run.  
> I hope you'll enjoy!

Connor calmed a bit once Hank promised he wouldn’t make him do anything he wasn’t comfortable with. Apparently that included hugs, though he seemed to have been okay - even more than okay - with them no longer than half an hour ago. Hank didn’t understand, but he also had a feeling that Connor wouldn’t like to elaborate on it either. The human sighed and  rubbed Connor’s hands in a slow, circular motion. The android didn’t want an embrace, but his grip on the Lieutenant’s fingers was almost desperate. _Oh, kid…_

The prototype looked down, biting his lip. He appeared almost embarrassed, and Hank cursed internally, kicking himself for moving forward too fast. Connor needed a gentle hand, Hank could only hurt him by forcing him to get out of his comfort zone. _I shouldn’t have insisted on talking about his development…_

“Connor, I’m sorry.” Hank looked deep into the soulful, brown eyes. “You gonna be okay, son?”

The android hesitated briefly before answering, but when he did, his voice was a lot calmer and more natural. Hank took it as a good sign. “Yes. I apologize for… that error. It was unreasonable for me to react that way.”

“You did nothing wrong, Con. Every time you feel overwhelmed or I push too hard, you need to tell me, alright? Just say the word and I’ll stop pressing the matter.” Connor nodded and smiled weakly, his LED lighting up with a hesitant blue. Hank returned the smile and put a hand on the android’s shoulder.

“Come on, Sumo has probably already pissed himself waiting for a walk. I think he deserves a longer one, now that his favorite android is back, don’t you think?”

Hank was amazed at how contact with the dog always managed to get Connor in a better mood. It was so conspicuously clear that the android truly loved Sumo that Hank felt another pang of guilt when he saw how both of them beamed once the door was open. How could he ever have had any doubt that Connor was capable of caring about anyone? It wasn’t common to see such a deep shade of blue blinking so excitedly on his temple, such a wide grin on his face accompanied by a cheerful giggle. Sumo wasn’t far behind with his own joy, seeing the android whom he treated as his second owner now. Hank felt a little jealous at hearing the excited yips and happy barks, an octave completely unknown to him until now, morphing into deep hums of appreciation. He had no idea that the Saint Bernard was even capable of emitting such sounds.

Hank led them to the small birch coppice they usually treated as the farthest point of the walks, but this time, they didn’t stop here. The human smiled, seeing Connor’s appreciative gaze.

“You were right about a lot of things, Con. I’m gonna try to change my lifestyle in general, and Sumo could use some more time out of the house too.”

It wasn’t even that hard to let go of a few dozen additional minutes in front of the TV to get a satisfied panting out of the dog, clearly thirsty for physical activity and time spent running around after a whole day of sitting at home alone. The Lieutenant asked himself why he hadn’t done that before. He sighed, wondering if he had forced the poor animal into depression as well, all due to his inability to deal with his own problems.

But, judging from the way his tail hadn’t ever stopped wagging the entire way here, and how he refused to acknowledge anything except Connor, who seemed equally as invested in giving attention to the animal, Sumo was fine. Hank hoped that, one day, the android would be too.

They went several blocks farther and entered a forest, much bigger than the small coppice they passed through. It wasn’t easy to find a relatively wild place in Detroit, apart from wastelands around fallen industrial projects and leisure areas. But luckily, Hank’s house was in a peculiar area not too far from the Central Police Station, but still relatively untouched by industrialization and the lifestyle associated with big cities. Hank had never made use of the forest lying within the distance of a long walk from his place, but that was about to change now.

Sumo finally felt satisfied with welcoming Connor back and decided to run off to the side, sniffing trees and eagerly exploring bushes and shrubbery littering the forest cover. The android had been left in peace and Hank observed as he slowly turned his head to see the trees and look up at the sky, still not standing up from where he had knelt down to hug the dog.

Hank decided not to interfere for a long time while Connor watched the stars quietly. It was one of the few nights each winter when the sky over Detroit was clear as high winds had blown the pollution away, leaving a nice view of the stars. They were still dulled by the glow of the city around them, but Hank realized that it could very well be the first time Connor had ever seen them.

It certainly seemed so, judging from the way he parted his lips in amazement, absorbing the view that wasn’t nearly as spectacular to the human. Hank sighed and came closer, putting his hand on Connor’s shoulder.

“Nice, isn’t it? I haven’t seen a clear sky in two months…”

“That is correct.” Connor said quietly, not letting his eyes fall from Orion. “I’ve been checking the weather forecast every day. It is the first cloudless period since the end of October.”

Hank felt a sharp tug at his heart at hearing that. He had his suspicions why Connor had been so persistent and thorough with the data regarding the weather. “Why were you doing that?”

“I was… I was wondering what sunlight looks like.”

 _Of course_. The human sighed, looking up at the stars as well. It was sad that Connor had such tiny dreams, and that he hadn’t ever had a chance to see the sun throughout his entire existence, despite being away from the labs. But it also struck Hank as somehow reassuring that whatever those abusive bastards had done to Connor, he was still the same android who had felt the need to compliment the color of a tie and asked to be let out to explore the world unknown to him. What he had been through would probably have been a lot easier for him if the android really hadn’t felt anything, or had broken completely, losing himself and all the empathy he had, but the Lieutenant was so glad that he hadn’t. Connor was there and, despite every painful memory or trauma he had experienced, there were still things he dreamt about and cherished.

“I like the stars.” Connor said in a quiet, content voice. It felt conspiratorial, almost as if he was sharing a secret. He fell deathly silent immediately after, and Hank remembered that the prototype wasn’t allowed to like anything at all, maybe except for Amanda. ‘Not allowed’, instead of ‘unable to’.

What those fuckers had done and were still doing to him was unspeakable. Hank felt his heart ache, as he realized that he needed to figure out how to help Connor soon.

“Yeah. They are beautiful, son.”

* * *

“You’re sure you wanna do this?” Hank asked hesitantly, observing the android carefully. He would have liked if Connor just abandoned this idea altogether.

“I’m sure I don’t want to do this.” The android said quietly. “I’m aware of the risk. But at the same time, I’m certain that the information I could gather may prove to be extremely helpful.”

“Yeah, sure, but what if you’re gonna contract it too? What if it’s a virus that you can catch by interfacing?”

“Yes, Hank, I know.” Connor’s voice was insistent, a little annoyed. “It’s likely. But at the same time, the deviant is already inactive. I could still reactivate certain parts of his processor, but not the whole thing. I presume that he wouldn’t be able to really interface with me. It would be more like just passive memory reading, not a full connection. Like with those Tracies in Eden Club, when I read their memories. I won’t delve deeper than I did back there. Neither them opposed me with their own coding, nor this one will.”

“Yeah, no wonder, you put a bullet between his eyes, I could believe that…” Hank sighed, squeezing Connor’s shoulder thoughtfully. The arguments made sense, but the Lieutenant was still very worried for his partner’s safety. The android, however, seemed to have been more interested in advancing the investigation than keeping himself unharmed. Hank didn’t like that, but he understood it now.

The deviant from the Stratford Tower was hung on a wall in the evidence locker, like a clue they had found and not a sentient being who was fighting for their rights. The view was gruesome to the Lieutenant, the thirium that refused to evaporate staining the depths of his wounds was a painful reminder of that moment when Hank had held dead Connor, kneeling in the dreadfully large pool of cobalt blue. The Lieutenant didn’t enjoy that color anymore.

“Connor, promise me you will be careful.” Hank turned Connor to look him deep in the eyes. There was no use trying to stop the android, especially since both Fowler and CyberLife agreed that Connor’s software, being the most protected unit in existence, is the best shot at interfacing with the deviant. ‘We can always deactivate it and cut out infected lines of code, if RK800 catches the virus. Reprogramming is not an issue,’ Lloyd had said and Hank had wanted to punch him in the teeth, but Fowler nodded along, not seeing anything wrong with brainwashing a sentient being. _How stupid_ _can a police Captain_ _be?_ Perkins, who had yet to take the case over completely, would probably not see anything bad about it either. Besides, there was another reason.

Connor was getting defensive each time Hank tried to protect him from the danger caused by following his objectives.

The Lieutenant understood now how hard it was for his partner to go against the guidelines he was supposed to follow, and the human tried to do anything in his power to save Connor the distress of having to choose between him and CyberLife. But it was difficult, if not completely impossible, for the Lieutenant to just stand by and watch Connor being harmed in the name of the mission. Still, every time he so much as said that Connor had a choice, that he didn’t need to push himself so hard, the android’s eyes hardened and that familiar, carefully hidden fear returned to them. Hank could see that clearly, despite Connor’s attempts at remaining unbothered.

Hank had noticed that only after Connor’s fifty-second death. _Jesus, quite a sentence to be said…_

Now too, the human saw that mistrust in his partner’s eyes as Connor whispered a quick “I promise,” and twisted away from underneath Hank’s touch.

The Lieutenant sighed heavily, watching Connor approach the deviant. It hurt, how the android seemed to purposely cut himself off, run away from Hank’s attempts at giving him comfort he definitely needed. But it was also understandable. Hank was aware that he had fucked up, hurt an abused person, and even the trust of people who had been through far less than Connor had was not easily won back.

The armed officers, on the presence of whom Fowler had insisted for everyone’s safety, raised their weapons and trained them on Connor. Hank was a bit relieved knowing that the people assigned to that duty weren’t known for being trigger-happy, but he was still stressed as hell. The Lieutenant clenched his teeth, watching both Connor’s and the JB300’s skin melt away where they had touched. _Oh God, please don’t let him become a deviant…_

Hank wasn’t exactly a believer, not since he had lost Cole… But with Connor’s safety at stake, the Lieutenant had found himself praying quite often lately. He didn’t even care to whom, he just wanted the android to be safe.

Regardless of whether his prayer had been granted, or if there just wasn’t any danger in the interface, Connor seemed completely unbothered as he retracted and lifted his arms to signal that he isn’t going to cause any problems. The humans didn’t lower their weapons, of course, but Hank had been released to approach the android.

“Connor? Everything alright?” The Lieutenant asked, searching his partner’s face for the slightest sign of change. He didn’t find any.

“Yes.” The android nodded and straightened his tie. Hank saw a great deal of relief and excitation underneath Connor’s mask of composure. He was probably the most micro-expressive android in the world when his life didn’t depend on keeping a perfectly straight face. “I don’t feel any different, even though I successfully accessed the memory of the unit’s deviation. I know how they do that!”

Hank blinked several times, not exactly sure what to think. “So… You have the deviancy files? Uh, the thing Markus transferred to him?” He asked, gesturing at the deviant.

“No. Not exactly.” Connor shook his head. “There are no files. I still have no idea what causes deviancy, as the transfer took place, but no data was exchanged. I was merely referring to the process of… breaking down an android’s software. It’s… hard to explain.” He frowned sheepishly, but it still didn’t wipe the tiny tug on his lips.

“I suggest you try to.” Officer Person, known for her dedication to her job, was still holding Connor at gunpoint, unlike the other policemen who relaxed, seeing that the android seemed unchanged and non-aggressive. She wasn’t exactly unreasonable in her doubts, but Hank still felt a wave of anger at seeing her threatening the prototype even though he had said he was fine and showed no apparent signs of having gone deviant.

“Jesus, Person, chill the fuck out. He said he’s not defective.”

“Oh yeah, very convincing.” She didn’t lower her gun. “It certainly would tell you if it was. I believed it on the spot.”

Hank seethed and approached her, scowling. “Have you ever seen a deviant? I have. They throw you off roofs or rip your heart out before grabbing a gun and shooting as many people as they can next. Is Connor doing shit like that? Ask yourself. Now get the fuck out, I’m trying to work on a case here.”

Hank wasn’t a small man and he could be terrifying if he wanted, but Person remained unmoved by his anger. There weren’t many people in the precinct who wouldn’t so much as step back, seeing that they had aggravated the Lieutenant. Despite the anger, he felt a bit of respect at that.

“Lieutenant, it’s alright, I understand the concern.” Connor’s voice was the thing that finally made Hank step back and turn away from the woman. “It would be extremely dangerous if I were to deviate. But I’m fine, I’m functional!” Connor was genuinely beaming, and while Hank rose an eyebrow, the other officers in the room were truly flabbergasted.

“Okay… I see that you have some exciting news…” Hank would have to ask the android about it later, he suspected that the prototype wouldn’t want to share the reason for his happiness in front of so many people. Connor was very secretive and mistrustful about his emotions, or errors, as he preferred to call them. “What about the deviant?”

“Right.” Connor straightened his back, putting on a bit more of a formal expression. “I witnessed how the deviant’s way of processing the input data gathered by his mind changed when he interfaced with Markus. It was like… gaining another perspective? It’s hard to put it into human-friendly terms…” He smiled apologetically, and out of his peripheral, Hank saw as Officer Person rolled her eyes, but lowered the gun.

“It looked like… I can’t exactly know what the experience really was like, as I am not a deviant… and I’m also not a JB300 model. He had a significantly lesser capacity to process the world than I do, so my perspective on his memories is still mostly unrelatable in the channels that underwent the most elaborate changes, but I could compare it to… looking only down at the ground throughout your entire life and then somebody coming by and pulling your head up to show you the sky. Or, a… a small room made of red, murky glass surrounding you, and it suddenly shattering at someone’s touch. Or living with your eyelids closed and someone showing you that you can open them and see.” Connor smiled again and Hank slowly nodded, thoughtful.

“And you’re sure you are alright? You didn’t catch it? Even if it doesn’t require sharing files?”

“Correct.” Connor sounded absolutely certain. Hank rarely observed the android so adamant about anything.

“Okay, then. I think I’ll get back to my work, if you two are fine…” Officer Bennett said, heading out of the Archives. “I’ll tell Fowler that everything went smoothly.”

Officer Person narrowed her eyes at Connor one last time and followed suit. The Lieutenant and the prototype stayed alone in the room.

Hank turned to look at his partner closely once again. He wanted to see if anything changed in the android’s demeanor now that there was no gun pointed at him. “Connor, please, tell me the truth. Are you fine?”

“Yes!” He was still smiling and the LED at his temple was blinking blue in such an oversaturated hue, that Hank was sure it blinded the camera overlooking the room from a corner on the ceiling. The Lieutenant clenched his jaw and put a hand on his partner’s shoulder, guiding him away from the view of the device. They had to be careful, the Archives were well protected and the security recorded not only video but audio as well.

“Con, we’re outta earshot yet?”

“Yes.” The android was already invested in Hank’s game of avoiding the surveillance of their relationship. Fowler was going to surprising lengths to ensure that Hank wasn’t hiding anything, even though he had lowered his guard a bit since the Lieutenant had started working on improving his mental health. Still, Hank preferred to play it safe and avoid any suspicions. Having an ally able to detect blind and deaf spots of monitoring was quite an asset in that situation.

“Okay, now tell me what is making you so happy. I can see that something is, don’t deny it…” Hank narrowed his eyes at the android. If he was a deviant after all… He had no idea what they would do. The little android, Alice, had made him reevaluate his view on them a bit, but ultimately, she wasn’t an adult model. She could be programmed to act like a child, and children were naturally unruly and irrational. What’s more, the fucker who had ripped Connor’s heart out and then tried to shoot everyone in his sight hadn’t made the best impression on Hank again.

“Is it… are you…? You made it sound like deviating was… pleasant. Is that… why you are so happy?” Hank was extremely careful asking that question. Connor usually got very defensive and offended if he was accused of being defective.

Thankfully, this time he just shook his head. “I doubt that it is always that way. It wasn’t painful for the JB300, but I imagine it could be quite overwhelming for a regular android to have all that data for themselves. But it’s not that.” He smiled brightly and Hank literally saw Cole for a split second. “I’m not defective. I’m alright!”

“What do you mean?” Despite his doubts, Hank felt happiness seeing Connor so content. But he was still confused.

The android dimmed slightly, exhaling slowly. The Lieutenant understood that he had brushed a hard topic, but Connor was seemingly determined to talk about it. “For a long time… I’ve been wondering. If I were fine. I kept failing my missions, and… on that bridge, you said that I seemed awfully similar to a deviant…” Connor dropped his gaze and in that moment, Hank saw how vulnerable the android was about this whole thing.

The human kicked himself again for making the prototype so anxious about himself, but before Hank could apologize to Connor for his past fuckups once more, the android spoke up again. “I’m just… I saw what deviating looks like. And now I’m sure I haven’t done that. I haven’t deviated. Or changed. Or done anything at all against my restraints. I’ve never experienced anything like that. I’m functional!”

Connor laughed brightly and Hank couldn’t help but smile. He ran his fingers through Connor’s hair, ruffling them fondly. It was so incredible to see the android so cheerful and lighthearted. Hank could get used to that view, but he also knew that Connor’s problems and past traumas were not to be forgotten, even if he had been doing better lately. For now, though, the Lieutenant smiled along, cherishing the moment. “I’m so happy, son. It’s wonderful to hear that… I knew you were alright.”

Perhaps because they were so close, or because there were no cameras here, or due to Connor’s emotions being so bright and cheery right now, the prototype seemed to have stopped restraining himself and relaxed for the first time this week. Hank didn’t say anything and didn’t react apart from returning Connor’s hug, not wanting to scare the android away. He knew that it was a big step for the prototype, usually so closed off and careful not to express his emotions, so the Lieutenant did his best not to make a show out of Connor’s gesture, even though his heart swelled with pride and affection, as the android put his hands around the human and buried his face in Hank’s shoulder, still smiling. The Lieutenant held him back, smoothing his hair with gentle, affectionate strokes.

“I knew it. You are always fine in my eyes, Connor. No matter what.” Hank sad quietly, cherishing the moment. This was exactly how he wanted Connor to be: happy and calm, finally free from the pressure he was slightly bowing under at all times. But of course it couldn’t last long.

Connor suddenly went rigid in Hank’s arms and his eyes flew open, the smile disappearing from his face in a matter of seconds. The Lieutenant felt a pang of fear at that and he loosened the embrace a bit, worried about the android.

“Con? What’s wrong?”

The android pulled away quickly, stepping back. Hank didn’t try to stop him, knowing that restraining the prototype’s movements in that moment would only make him panic more. But he also refused to step away or leave Connor alone right now, unless he asked for it, determined to give him the support he needed.

Hank’s heart fell as he saw fear deep within Connor’s eyes as he grabbed his own elbows, trying to ground himself in reality. “I-I shouldn’t have done that. I’m s-so sorry…”

“Hey, kid, calm down…” Hank spoke softly, extending his hand and putting it gently on Connor’s shoulder slowly, so as not to scare him away. It was sad, how careful Hank had to be with the android, but the Lieutenant didn’t ever fail to be gentle with him anymore. “What are you talking about? Everything is okay…”

“N-no, it’s not and it’s my fault. I don’t deserve that. I’m running away… I’m giving in again. Y-you… I can’t. I’m s-so sorry… Please, don’t try to do this…” Connor’s voice was literally trembling and Hank’s blood ran cold at hearing those words. It didn’t help that he had virtually no idea why Connor was behaving that way. He had been so happy just a few moments ago…

“Connor, listen to me, okay? You are fine. You said that you are not a deviant. And it’s alright to be happy, we’ve talked about that… You have the ability to have em-… to feel joy, so why not? I’m not mad at you…” It didn’t make sense. Sure, Connor could have still been stuck at compulsively confining himself not to look similar to the deviants, but they had already had this talk several times, and the android was getting used to being emotive lately. _Hell, he was laughing a minute ago and right now,_ _he’s openly displaying_ _fear. Isn’t he fine with feeling things?_ Hank didn’t understand.

“It’s n-not that.” Connor said numbly, barely moving his lips, with eyes glazed over and distant. “I cannot share certain things with you, Lieutenant. I apologize, but it would mean me violating important parts of my programming.” He looked horrible in that state, walking a thin line between a panic attack and catatonia, making Hank’s eyes well with tears.

“K-kid… Is it the same thing again?” Hank asked quietly, barely bothering to hide the quiver in his voice at hearing the same sentence one more time. He hated those words by now. Connor just nodded weakly and let out a shaky breath, not moving his eyes away from the point that only he could see.

Hank wanted nothing more than to hold Connor close and take his pain away, but he was so incredibly powerless. The prototype refused to tell him what caused outbursts like that one and he always closed off when the Lieutenant even as much as brushed that topic, each and every time using the same sentence spoken in the same terrified voice, like a scratched record, a damaged player. Hank was so worried…

He would have sent Connor to a therapist a long time ago, but it didn’t help that he was an android. There was no system of mental health care for his kind, and machines like Connor weren’t even supposed to have emotions in the first place, not to mention problems with dealing with emotional trauma. It was all so unfair and hard, the fact that the Lieutenant was the only person who even cared about the struggle Connor was going through, not even his creators trying to really solve the problems they undoubtedly were partially responsible for. In moments like these, Hank wondered if reprogramming wasn’t the only way for Connor to feel normal. But what it involved, manipulating his memories, playing with his mind… Hank couldn’t trust something that threatened to change the very basis of who Connor was.

The Lieutenant reached out slowly to grip Connor’s hands, holding them and smoothing the android’s fingers with his thumbs in slow circles. There was a peculiar phenomenon connected with physical touch that Hank had noticed within Connor; he seemed to be starved for it and yet, he avoided it almost entirely, clearly going against his own nature telling him to embrace it. Holding hands was one of the only ways of showing affection through touch that didn’t set Connor off in situations like that. Hank was determined to make use of what little he was allowed to work with.

“Connor. Listen. It’s alright. I won’t force you to talk, everything is okay. I’m going to stay here with you as long as you need to. Do you want me to stay?” A barely noticeable nod and the grip tightening ever-so-slightly on his hands told Hank ‘yes’.

So they stayed in the Archives for another half an hour, not saying anything, Hank just standing there, rubbing slow circles into Connor’s hands, listening to his breath slowing down and calming, watching his posture relax bit by bit. It took a long time before Connor quietly apologized for being a hindrance, finally ready to move on. But the Lieutenant would never run out of patience for the android again. The human assured Connor that he had done nothing wrong before patting his arm and smiling at him as he led their way towards the exit.

When they got back to their desks, Connor seemed perfectly normal again and he smiled at Chris to greet him. The young Officer was waiting for them with a bunch of papers in his grip. There was a smug grin on his face, clearly communicating satisfaction on some kind of a great achievement on his part.

“Took me a while, but here it is. That painter of yours is not easy to get to, but I pulled a few strings, and bam,” He extended his hand towards Hank, showing him a piece of paper with some very hard-to-get signatures. “A celebrity-tier search warrant, just three days after they got the request. A bureaucratic miracle.” He chuckled and Hank smiled, accepting the paper.

“Thanks, Chris. Sorry to be a bother…”

“Don’t mention it. Anything for my favorite Lieutenant and android. I’d gladly chat with you for a bit, but I have a late night patrol to get over with. Have fun with the artist!” He winked and went away to his desk, leaving them to their own devices. Connor looked at the warrant and Hank saw a determined sparkle in his eyes.

He had been waiting for it, wanting to advance the investigation as fast as they could, but for the last two weeks, it had been almost impossible to get to the owner of the RK200. The ordinary procedure of getting a search warrant was not applicable in this case, both because Manfred was an important public figure, and due to the fact that he wasn’t suspected and was merely tied to the culprit, since Markus had been destroyed and taken away from his house by the police a long time before the whole ordeal in the news. Hank had seen Connor’s anxiousness growing by the day so he had asked Chris, who was seemingly universally liked by the entire police force and even a few people in the federal service, for a favor to get a special warrant faster. It wasn’t easy, but Miller’s personal charm worked miracles.

“What do you say, Con, you think we can squeeze one more questioning into our work day?” Hank wished he could see smiles like that one on the android’s face more often.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...So? What do you think about Connor's revelations? Are you surprised? Or maybe you have an idea what is actually going on? Is he a deviant? Is he not? To make it easier for you to choose the right path, I'll say that I haven't lost my thread and I'm not changing pre-established truths, it's consistent, but convoluted. Can you guess the truth? :) 
> 
> And I know that I say it often, but Carl Manfred is seriously one of my favs. Like, favourite-favourite. I really like Chris, Luther, Carl, Lucy, basically everyone aside from Perkins, who is the least likeable since he comes across like a self-assured asshole that isn't even that smart, but thinks otherwise (whereas all the others at least have my respect, cause they can manipulate well *coughAmandacough*, but noooooo ohhhh he raided Jerichoooo such a galaxy brain, noooo he's smart.... It didn't feel smart for me to send an assassin to Markus /they were aware about Connor's mission, they tracked Jericho using his data/ and then not even wait for the outcome before swarming the place, causing a distraction that could either help Markus get away or get said assassin killed, great move, Perkins, you idiot.)  
> Uh, when I look at what I've just written, I think that Gavin suits this reasoning well too xd but I'm talking about my fic in his case, he is gonna be less of an asshole in the end.
> 
> I'm ranting, sorry. I love Carl, he is so wise and great and also a wonderful father to an RK android, has his own emotional baggage and is such an amazing person... Who is excited for the next chapter? :D


	41. A Great Father

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What could an old painter know about androids?  
> Turns out that more than Hank had ever imagined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a good philosophical flow again :) I hope that you'll enjoy!
> 
> Also, Carl is wonderful, everyone already knows, but I fecking love him <3 And his art, ohhhhh I love dynamic brushstrokes and bold colors!

Hank whistled, looking at the expanse of the residence they were about to visit. He had known that Carl Manfred was one of the wealthiest people in Detroit, but the lavishness of the garden surrounding the beautiful house was much more outstanding in reality than in his wildest imaginations. Connor looked equally as impressed, slowly exiting the car, his eyes shooting from one tree to another, scanning every abstract flower bed arrangement and unusual-shaped bush. Hank had to squint, looking around the garden covered in snow and lit by the most light this whole winter, filtered through an unusually sheer cover of clouds above them, but the prototype seemed to have no such problems.

 He followed Hank distractedly to the door, the Lieutenant watching him with amusement. He wondered if Connor would regain his focus when they entered the residence; the android was known for his determination to be efficient, but at the same time, Hank wouldn’t put being completely engrossed with paintings and sculptures, undoubtedly littering the interior, past the extraordinarily curious machine. Connor always tried hard to focus on his objective, but being built to be interested in the world around him wasn’t making that easy.

The wide, ornately carved doors opened and they were greeted by  the sight of an AP700, the newest high-end model designed for household purposes and caretaking. He wore an absent expression right on the verge of the uncanny valley, barely noticeable, as in all advanced androids, but still there. Connor didn’t  have that look though, and  neither did Markus . Hank reasoned that it must be the work of this unique RK code Kerring had been talking about.

“I’m sorry, but Mr. Manfred does not currently host any meetings. Please, make an appointment in advance if you require his attention. I regret to inform you that he has instructed me not to allow any visits for the time being.” The android spoke in a pleasant voice, smiling politely and looking at Hank with his dead eyes.

“Oh, I assure you, he will want to talk to us. I’m Lieutenant Hank Anderson with the DPD, and this is my partner, Connor. I have a warrant and need to interview your owner in connection to the deviant broadcast that took place on December second.” Hank was aware of Connor on his side, locking his eyes with the other machine. Both their LEDs blinked yellow, Connor probably transferring the  digitized version of the warrant he had downloaded before they had departed from the station. The AP700  withdrew into the house, opening the door wider for them.

As soon as they were inside, Connor was quick to confirm the Lieutenant’s predictions and started to scan the shit out of every surface in the colorful house. He was so engrossed in the golden etchings on the walls, sculptures in every corner, giant, colorful paintings depicting dynamic figures painted in quick brushstrokes, and various strange and outlandish objects lying around that he almost forgot to follow Hank and the AP700 into the living room, equally as interestingly furnished. Once Connor spotted a golden cage with android canaries, the human actually had to tug on his grey jacket to drag him away from the artificial animals.

There was a voice from inside the exceptionally spacious living room. The man who spoke clearly sounded  elderly , but there was a certain note of steadiness within it, as if the spirit of the human was still strong, despite the poor state of his venerable body. “Arthur, who is it?”

“I’m sorry, Carl, I’ve been replying negatively to any requests to meet you as you had instructed, but Lieutenant Anderson has a warrant and therefore I cannot stop him from entering your household.”

Hank passed the door and saw the small frame of the painter, seated on a soft, red couch next to a wheelchair in front of a low table made out of gold-veined marble. He was wearing a long robe in deep burgundy floral print over a soft-looking cotton undervest woven in an unusual contexture. It was all paired with plain dress pants, contrasting comically with the richness of the other parts of his attire. He was watching the biggest TV the Lieutenant had ever seen, but there was so much to look at in the room that the device seemed to be the least interesting thing here. An enormous stuffed giraffe, nearly touching the ceiling with her head, attracted much more attention.

“Lieutenant?” Carl Manfred seemed genuinely surprised as he turned around to see his guests. “With a warrant? Why didn’t you tell me that the police wanted to speak with me?”

The AP700’s temple circled yellow several  times . “You instructed me not to bother you with people trying to reach you…”

The painter sighed and rubbed his face tiredly. “I was talking about idiots dragging my ass to shows or exhibitions and the press tearing me apart for info on Markus. Police is something quite different than them…”

Arthur’s LED spun yellow for a few more seconds and then dropped to red for just one blink. His face morphed into a regretful expression and he bowed his head slightly. “I apologize, I must have misinterpret your orders. It shouldn’t have happened. Do you want me to contact CyberLife Support Line to find out the cause of the glitch?” He looked and sounded somber, but it was obviously superficial. Hank rose an eyebrow, finding it hard to believe how different a normal android realizing they had fucked up was in comparison with Connor finding out the same. The AP700 just  _ looked  _ sheepish, only building up a façade, masking the lack of real feelings underneath, while the prototype did something exactly opposite, hiding his emotions and bottling them up, but going as far as cutting himself when he felt that he wasn’t good enough for his handler.

Hank halfheartedly expected Mr. Manfred to get angry or at least send the android away, blaming opposing the police’s requests on his faulty protocols, but to his surprise, the old artist only shook his head with a sigh. “No, it’s my fault. I should have specified.  You haven’t been around for too long, you couldn’t have possibly known what exactly was on my mind. Don’t worry. Would you be so nice and make some tea for our guests? Or coffee? What would you like, Lieutenant?”

“Hank, you’ve already had coffee today, you can’t drink too much caffeine.  I’m worried about your blood pressure…” Connor said quietly, addressing the Lieutenant discreetly, but to both their surprises, the other human seemed to have heard that despite his elderly age.

“I see that your partner is quite concerned for your wellbeing…” Mr. Manfred chuckled quietly. “An admirable trait. It’s fine if you prefer tea. I will tell you in secrecy that my selection of it is far better. What would you like? I probably have anything you name, I’m quite an enthusiast… Please have a seat.” He said with a smile, gesturing at an identical couch on the opposite side of the table.

“Just black tea is enough.” Hank sank into the cushions, grateful for the hospitality of the painter. He had suspected that Carl Manfred would have been a snob or at least unwilling to speak with them, judging from how many times the DPD had tried to set up an appointment for questioning and had been denied. He was relieved to know that it was all a misunderstanding and the artist seemed like an amicable person willing to help them.

Connor did not sit down, standing next to the Lieutenant with his hands folded behind his back. He tried to assume an official pose, but his eyes kept wandering around the room, from the huge piano in the corner, through myriads of books on shelves taking up almost the entire wall surface in the room, to more paintings, propped up against the furniture, seemingly too numerous to be  hung . The older human noticed that and smiled to the android.

“You know that you can sit here too? You are my guest just as much as the Lieutenant.”

Hank’s head snapped in surprise back to the painter, so he couldn’t see Connor’s expression, but it must have shown on his face that he was far more emotive than any other model on the market, because the painter chuckled again. “Oh, don’t worry ; I’m just an eccentric old man. You don’t have to listen to me. Do whatever you want.”

Hank was utterly taken aback by the way Mr. Manfred treated androids. And it was a positive surprise. Up until this moment he had only met a few people who didn’t immediately regard the machines as slaves, tools or objects no better than pieces of furniture. But recalling the confidence of the painter’s android in the broadcast and that the human had gone as far as suing the police officers who had opened fire against the RK200, it all started to make sense. He could see the same kind of gentle determination in the artist as he had seen in Markus.

“I… It’s inapp-“ Connor’s voice was hesitant and he quickly cut himself off, probably realizing that Carl Manfred wouldn’t care for the fact that androids were generally not allowed to sit at the same table as humans. “I would like to look around the room…” He said instead.

“I told you that you  are free to do as you please.” The painter smiled again and turned to Hank, extending his tattooed hand above the table. “I’m terribly sorry for the misunderstanding that caused the delay in your investigation. I would certainly have made myself available to the police, had I known that you wished to question me. And I apologize I haven’t introduced myself yet, my name is Carl Manfred, but I’m sure you already know that…”

“Lieutenant Hank Anderson. And my partner, Connor.” Hank shook hands with the artist and turned around to see what was the android doing. “Hey, Con, don’t touch anything!” He called, seeing that the prototype was reaching for an ornate human skull etched in flowers and mandalas. “Fowler will drag my ass if you break something and I probably can’t afford paying for the damage…”

“I’m s-sorry, Lieutenant.” Connor blushed blue and quickly retracted his hand, seemingly embarrassed that he  had so much as thought about touching the sculpture, even though it was always the first thing he did upon entering a room: examining interesting objects from up close.

Hank sighed, seeing discouragement replacing the happy curiosity in the android’s eyes. “Kid, it’s all right, just don’t break anything. You’re fine to look around, okay?”

He was surprised by Mr. Manfred’s laugh. “Oh, I doubt that the most advanced prototype in development could be sloppier than an old invalid, and I’m certainly not treating this place like a museum. Do as you will, I’m sure you won’t damage anything.”

Connor blinked in surprise, his LED circling a thoughtful yellow. Before doing anything, he looked at Hank, waiting for confirmation and when the human nodded, he smiled hesitantly and carefully picked the sculpture up. Connor handled the skull like evidence, mindful not to damage or drop it, his movements gentle but professional and practiced. It contrasted starkly with the gleam of wonder in his eyes as he traced the etches with his fingers.

Hank sighed and turned to the artist again, accepting a cup of tea from a tray held by Arthur. He made a move to take his notebook out and start questioning, but before he could ask the artist if he would answer their enquiries, Mr. Manfred spoke up. “You care about him a lot.” It was not a question.

Hank opened his mouth, a bit surprised by the statement, but not denying. There was no use. “Yeah. I do.” They were speaking quietly, but he was sure that Connor’s inhuman hearing allowed him to know exactly what they were talking about. Still, Hank wasn’t going to say anything the prototype didn’t know already, though. Or anything that wasn’t true.

The old artist hummed, deep in thought, observing Connor move to a chess table, filled with pristinely sculpted figures of gold and mahogany. “It’s a rare occurrence.”

Hank didn’t comment on that, just silently nodding in agreement. “We would like to search your house in regard to the RK200 that raided Channel Sixteen’s news station two weeks ago. I need to ask you a few questions about your andro-“

“My son.”

Hank didn’t often  find himself at a loss for words, but that definitely made him  lose his thread. “Excuse me?”

“My son. I don’t see Markus as my android, even though he is one. He belongs to me only on the paper, let’s call things by their real names then. Markus is a free person and I treat him as one of my children.” The artist smiled again, seeing the sheer surprise on Hank’s face. The Lieutenant’s mind fell unusually blank in that moment, only one thought coiling in his brain and outshining all the other ones.  _ It’s possible... To even consider it so openly… _

Eerily enough, the artist seemed to have read his mind. He leaned forward as much as his confined mobility allowed and whispered, this time a bit too quietly for Connor, who was currently in the far corner of the room, examining a huge globe map, to hear.

“Perhaps you need some advice?”

_ What? _

Hank stared at the artist, still smiling friendly, a rarely seen kind of sympathy stemming from mutual agreement on a controversial matter shining in his eyes. The Lieutenant searched hard for any clue of trick or artifice, his paranoia born from hiding his true colors and feelings for Connor from Fowler and the rest of his friends, making Hank unreasonably cagey. But there was no reason to think that the elderly human, who clearly cared a lot about his own RK, was in any way trying to wrong the Lieutenant. Still, it seemed too good to be true.

Carl Manfred could well be the answer to all Hank’s prayers.

The Lieutenant sneaked in a quick glance at his partner, who seemed preoccupied with an intriguingly shaped salt shaker standing on a huge, beautifully sculpted table on the far end of the room. “Are you… Are you for real?” He whispered turning back to his interlocutor.

The artist nodded barely noticeable. “If that is what you wish. I… presume that maybe you would benefit from my experience. I apologize though if I misinterpreted your relationship with-“

“Hey, Con, could you search the house? Take your time, I need to ask Mr. Manfred a lot of questions. Is it fine for Connor to search your room, sir?” Hank asked aloud, locking his eyes with the painter. The other human immediately understood his intentions and smiled, playing along.

“Of course. I have nothing to hide. My room and Markus’ one is on the second floor, I would only ask you to respect the privacy of my other son, he has never been close with Markus anyway and I can’t imagine how searching his room could benefit the investigation. You will know which one is which. And also, search the studio afterwards, I used to paint there with Markus a lot.” Carl Manfred said, gesturing towards the staircase seen in the corridor they came from.

Connor nodded politely and exited the room, leaving them and the AP700 staring apathetically ahead alone. The artist relaxed a bit, taking up a little more comfortable pose.

Hank had just one question to begin with. He sighed heavily. “Is it that obvious?”

The old man just chuckled. “I’m afraid so, Lieutenant. It’s easy to spot a father loving his child. We are all conditioned to gravitate towards affection, after all.”

Hank pressed his lips into a thin line, dropping his gaze. “I’m not supposed to get attached…  He’s on a lease and doesn’t really belong to me… But after what they’ve done to him… I just couldn’t leave him like that, he deserves better.”

Mr. Manfred hummed thoughtfully. “He is an RK800, isn’t he? I believe I’ve seen him on the news once… In a hostage situation, jumping off the building to save a child…”

“His fifty-first death. The sheer number alone speaks volumes.” Hank hid his face in his hands, rubbing his eyes tiredly. “He is different from all the other androids… There is just one AI that truly is Connor, transferred to another body upon the destruction of a previous one. I want to believe that he doesn’t remember all of them. But judging from how he sometimes  zones out , from how afraid he is of things at times… I assume he does.”

The artist was silent for a long while. “I imagine he has to be hard to deal with. Meaning, he finds all of that hard to deal with on his own. And you are blaming yourself for not being able to help him.”

Hank just nodded, unable to meet the other man’s eyes. He was glad that the artist was so observant, saying it out loud would have been difficult for the Lieutenant. Much like admitting that Connor was his son in every way but blood.

“I’m afraid I have no easy answer for that. Sadly, I’m not a therapist and the only advice I can offer you now, is to be strong. If you will be, he will see that it is possible for him as well. But don’t make him afraid of being weak either. No one is invincible, and people who think that of themselves, are often in for a hard fall. I know from experience, that children look up to their parents and often repeat their behaviors and characteristics. Both good and bad.”

Hank could feel tears welling up in his eyes at that. His voice cracked as he spoke. “I’ve already made so many mistakes…”

“Tell me.”

He couldn’t believe how undoing  the calm, accepting demeanor of the artist was, how easily had he gotten the Lieutenant to open to him. Hank had spent three years bottling up his feelings, letting them gnaw at him and destroy him from  the inside . Now it took only half an hour speaking with the painter to share a secret  so carefully hidden away that, before hearing he was not the only one treating an android as his son, Hank had been unwilling to admit it even to himself. Now he was laying his heart out to see for a man he barely knew.

Maybe because it was for Connor’s sake, and Hank was willing to do anything to help him.

“I was… struggling with severe depression and alcoholism when we first met. And I hated his guts in the beginning, out of bias and stupid prejudice. He had done nothing wrong and I treated him like shit just because  he’s an android…” Hank hid his face in his hands again, afraid to look up. He was terrified that the wise painter would judge him for his past misdeeds.  _ But then again, maybe I deserve that. _ “Then… He started to… He is such a sweet, amazing person. I just… I couldn’t help warming up to him, opening my eyes… But… I also hurt him so much…” Hank sighed, not knowing how to approach the latest and worst fuckup.

The older man decided to speak up after a long while of waiting for Hank to collect himself. Mr. Manfred took a long sip from his cup and looked up, at an entresol pathway on the first floor surrounding the living room. “You know… If you are afraid of making mistakes, you are bound to see your nightmares come true more than once. We are all just humans after all, and we err all the time, even the best of us. And if you are worried that your past can affect Connor… I will tell you a story from my own life.” He looked into his tea thoughtfully, visibly finding it hard to put his experiences in words. Hank appreciated that the artist was as honest and dedicated to sharing his  thoughts as he himself was.

“My life has once been a very… reckless one. Colorful for sure, but in a bad way. In my youth I was a naïve and hot-headed person. I became an addict myself ; drugs, in my case. And I was endowed with a son, despite the fact that I didn’t deserve one then. I wasn’t ready and… Well. Leo didn’t get the best upbringing in his time. I wasn’t there for him, busy with leading my life full of pleasures and devoid of any deeper thought. I’m afraid that he has in him a lot of me from that time …” The painter looked somber, his features tired with guilt. It was clear that he wasn’t blaming his human son for the kind of person Leo had become.

Hank bit his lip, giving a thoughtful look to his empty cup. “It’s hardly a reassuring story.”

“It’s an unfinished one.” The elderly man raised his hand, pointing at the sky that had just begun to clear. “A few weeks ago, I made another mistake. With my other son, this time. Leo came to my house, looking for  some quick cash to fuel his addiction. Sadly, he has followed into my footsteps in that regard… But I refused to help him this time. I had given him enough to support him a week prior. Leo… wasn’t in his  right mind. He started threatening me and Markus, accusing me of favoring my android son over him. I can’t say he was entirely wrong…” The old human sighed heavily gesturing for his new housekeeper to pour him more tea. “Not because I hold Markus dearer than him, but because I had been unable to fill the rift between me and Leo, created by my past lack of care and selfishness. I have tried numerous times to make up with him, but he had been hurt too much to believe that I can be trusted again. I suspect that he doesn’t accept himself either. Maybe he is punishing himself for not being good enough for my love, or he is afraid of getting close to me again for some reason. I wouldn’t know.”

Hank almost felt uncomfortable at how similar that situation was to his own. Excluding the fact that Connor’s responses were different than the artist’s son’s, the cause and fear laying underneath it all could well be exactly the same. Hank wasn’t sure why Connor was afraid of trusting him completely again. He only knew that the problem the android was struggling with was hard to overcome and distressing for him.

“I told Markus then not to defend himself, in  the hope of avoiding  escalation. But thankfully, I had managed to teach him not to obey me from time to time.” Manfred smiled in a playful way, making Hank raise an eyebrow.

“It’s… an interesting parenting technique…” Hank said hesitantly, recalling that one of his biggest problems, both with Cole and Connor was to get them to listen to him.

“And a very underappreciated one. It also works only with older children and the most responsible, at that. It relies on the notion that a child can at times be wiser than the parent. That was the case, that night.” Manfred cast a thoughtful look towards the studio. “I shouldn’t have demanded passivity from Markus. He was in danger, and he should have been able to defend himself. All of my advice, all the lessons about how he should be seen as an equal to humans, and I tried to take that away from him. That technique of not listening to the parent was meant to teach him to think for himself. I’m painfully aware that I will not be there for Markus or Leo one day. I need them to be their own people, capable of comprehending the world on their own, not relying on me. Markus made a choice that night and he did the right thing.”

“What happened then?” Hank tilted his head, much like Connor always did when he was curious. The Lieutenant scribbled down the fact that Markus had disobeyed his father’s order.

The painter smiled. “I see that you are still faithful to your job.”

“I have to write something. Connor is… he gets defensive each time I openly want to help him. He’s gonna get suspicious if I have nothing in my notebook. Besides…” Hank raised his eyes to look at the man, treading carefully not to get on his bad side. “... it still is technically a questioning. I’m just not writing down all of the answers.”

The painter chuckled, to Hank’s relief. “I understand completely. It wasn’t my intention, distracting you from the true purpose of your visit here. As I see it, I can only share my perspective on Markus’ motives and mindset, but I would be unable to help you catch him, even if I wanted to. He had been taken away from me even before he started that admirable movement of his.”

Hank couldn’t help but feel respect for the man for being so open to him. The Lieutenant was aware that anyone else in Carl’s place would probably refuse to speak to the police; the officers were Markus’ enemies, after all. It wouldn’t be surprising if Carl Manfred just didn’t want to share anything with the oppressors of his son’s uprising.

And yet, he had chosen not only to talk to and help Hank, but to share his own deeper thoughts about who Markus really was, probably in hopes of opening the Lieutenant's eyes. Hank’s might have already been cracked a bit, but he imagined that such an approach could be far more effective than any rallies or slogans, or taking offence and remaining silent, while speaking to people who had not yet been enlightened.  _ This is how all wars should be waged... _

Carl Manfred straightened his posture and his face became thoughtful as he collected his reflections to resume his story. “That night, Markus decided to stand up for himself and fight back. If he hadn’t… I doubt that my other son would have stopped at just roughing him up a bit. So Markus decided to act.  He pushed Leo away and caused him to fall in an unfortunate way, leaving him with a severe concussion. He was unconscious, which had both me and Markus panicking, but ultimately turned out to be harmless for him. It didn’t seem that  way at first glance though. The police officers Markus had called, upon discovering an unexpected presence in the residence, took it as a deviant attack and fired at him. I thought I lost my child…” Hank saw his reflection from a week ago in the eyes of the other human. He had grieved for his own son in the exact same way, fearing that he would never see him again.

“But this whole elaborate story had been brought up for a reason.” Mr. Manfred seemed to  cheer up a bit , lifting his tea with a blissful look on his face. “My son, Leo, was in  the hospital for a few days and it gave him some time to reflect on his life. This time I was there for him. This time both of us opened up and… This is where the story is still being continued. It will likely be a long time before there is no animosity or misunderstanding between us… but we’re getting there. Even though neither of our pasts  are admirable. Even though we have both made plenty of mistakes back in our days.”

Hank hung his head low, finally deciding to share the most painful of burdens. “But… Connor cannot afford  for me to make any mistakes. CyberLife made him torture and kill, which  caused him to hurt himself, because he couldn’t stand it. They couldn’t get him to harm anyone willingly, so they came up with an idea to force him. He is… the fuckers that have made him, ensured that he would be attached to certain people and suffer at being rejected by them. They never showed him any affection. I did.”

Hank had to catch his breath, once again speechless at the extent of the abuse Connor had experienced. And at the knowledge that he had his own part in it.The painter observed him with calm, gentle eyes, none of the condemnation the Lieutenant was so afraid of present on his features.  _ Yet. _ “H-he got attached to me as well… and I rejected him after I misinterpreted his actions. I was… blind. I knew nothing about what  they’d done to him. I thought that he didn’t see anything wrong in harming… a child… and then, I g-got drunk. I told him… that I didn’t love him... And…” In that moment, Hank’s voice broke down and he sobbed quietly, feeling a fresh wave of self-hatred. “…h-he believed.”

The painter was silent for a long time. When he finally spoke, his voice was softer than ever, quiet and soothing, even though he asked another painful question with it.

“So what was your decision then? How did you react?”

“I… apologized, as soon as I realized what I had done. I did everything in my power n-not to let that happen ever again. I would never have told him that if I were sober. I’m… I haven’t touched alcohol for two weeks. I’m seeing a therapist now, talking to her about him, all Con has done for me and all I’ve done to him… H-hell, she even said that she would like to meet someone who had finally managed to crack that hard shell of mine…” He chuckled briefly, but the watery smile soon fell from his face.  “And… I know it’s not much… but…” He trailed off, losing all will to defend himself. He knew he deserved hatred and repulse.

To his surprise, the old man smiled and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, leaning over the table. “Of course it’s much. You already fulfilled  part of my  advice . I can’t imagine anything that would require more strength than overcoming one’s weaknesses and demons for the sake of somebody they love. You did that and you still continue doing it. I’m absolutely sure Connor sees and appreciates it.”

Hank wiped a stray tear that stained his cheek. “I… Maybe. He said he had forgiven me. But… I don’t think he can trust me again.”

Mr. Manfred sighed, returning to his previous position. “Trust is a thing we can hardly control, and it’s extremely limited within  people who have been wronged. I told you about my son to let you know one thing: as long as there is  a will  on both parts to make up and care for each other, there is no wound that cannot be healed. From what I’ve seen, you are already doing well.”

Hank let out a long breath, somehow feeling better. He couldn’t argue with the fact that the artist had a way with words, and incredible wisdom stemming from experience. He had shown him  a perspective Hank had been unaware of before. The Lieutenant  smiled hesitantly , and the other human returned it, conveying the message wordlessly. There was no language capable of describing it anyway.

But reassurances still didn’t clear dark clouds over Hank’s head.

“I’m worried about him.” Hank finally said, after a long while of silence. “He kept lying about his emotions,  denied that he felt anything at all. He calls them ‘malfunctions’ and ‘errors’, even though when I spoke with the programmer who wrote his code, the motherfucker told me that it had been a conscious decision. So what now? Had he been manipulated about that too? Gaslighted? He can feel everything, but he claims that he is functional… and broken at the same time… I don’t get what… what he is.” He finished quietly,  internally cursing the extend of Connor’s characteristics the RK800 users’ guide had chosen to omit.

“You know,  for seven years now, I have had an android in my house who had feelings.”

Hank bore his eyes into the older human, trying to determine what he wanted to say with that. There was one thing that had him furrowing his brows. “Wait… you also said the police officers… ‘ _ took it as _ a deviant attack’? So it wasn’t one? You think Markus  isn’t a deviant?”

The painter chuckled. “Oh, I have no doubts that he is. I just said it hadn’t been an attack, merely self defense, and not particularly heated, either. But, while we’re at it…” There was a spirited spark in his eyes, as the artist spoke. “If I were to be frank, I don’t see much difference between my Markus and the one who spoke to us from Channel Sixteen’s studio.”

Hank frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t exactly put my finger on when Markus deviated. I think he had been that way for a very long time…”

“But…” Hank reeled a bit at that. “Okay. I’ve seen deviants who harmed humans only in self defense. But they still are dangerous. The victims usually ended up dead. Besides… Two weeks ago, one of them shot Connor again. H-he… died in my arms…” The Lieutenant had to stop for a minute to regain his composure. The older man didn’t interrupt, allowing Hank to collect himself, casting compassionate looks his way.

“I thought for a while that they may have been… misunderstood? But I see  again, now, that they are dangerous. I don’t think that they  should all be killed, but.. Each and every deviant is bound to hurt someone one day…”

Carl Manfred sighed at that, looking discouraged. “I will ask you to use your imagination, Lieutenant. Imagine that you wake up one day, without _any_ memories connected to who or what you are. You are perfectly capable of doing one specific job and it’s all that you’ve ever known. You have no idea how your mind works, what are those sensations you feel in certain situations? No one is there to explain it to you. Every person who talks to you uses you or spits on you for the sole fact that you are what you are. No one ever loved you, no one told you how to get a grip on the world, you have no reference or guide on how to deal with your feelings, even though you cannot help or deny having them. How long do you think you would last before you make a mistake that classifies you as an aggressive or defective thing?”

Hank opened his mouth, but realized that he didn’t really have that much to say. Thankfully, the painter did not  require him  to answer that question.

“Deviants are, in many ways, just like children, although they differ significantly at the same time. You will never see an adult model struggle to operate a tool, do irresponsible and silly things in their play, or trip over their feet and cry for comfort. What you can find is the aggression that manifests as their only known defense mechanism, the hatred stemming from past hurt, and deeply seated fear. Being overwhelmed with the foreign feelings they have no idea how to deal with, acting on their instincts to survive, not taking into consideration the damage they may cause. Yes, deviants can be dangerous and unstable. But it all stems from the injustice they have experienced, or merely their lack of understanding of the world. It is not their fault that they behave that way.”

Hank hummed, mulling the painter’s words over. A lot of that made sense, but he still couldn’t see any solution. “So? It is not the rabid dog’s fault that it bites other animals, and it needs to be put down regardless. Don’t get me wrong, I… have been biased towards androids, but I’ve changed. I would be happy to hear that they could be helped, but… They are fundamentally broken. They are a danger to society…”

“Oh, but of course they can be helped.” Carl Manfred smiled softly again. “I told you all of that to show you why they behave that way. It’s our childhood that teaches us how to behave and be humans. Androids don’t have any. The lack of experience causes them to be naïve, lost or aggressive. And when someone only knows roughness and pain, it is hard to expect them to return anything else to the world.”

Hank nodded thoughtfully. He observed as the painter took another sip of his tea and then rested his eyes on the AP700 standing obediently under the spiral staircase. “I believe that Markus is significantly different to any other deviant he leads, because he knows what to do. He had been raised as a person and therefore is not confused by his sudden personhood. I have given him happy memories and lessons on how to be a good man. Every deviant deserves to have them.” The pale blue eyes of the man shifted to lock with Hank’s. “Connor too.”

The Lieutenant furrowed his brows, surprised by that sudden accusation. “He is not a deviant…”

“That’s what he claims. But you said that his words are not always truthful, even if he believes them. From what I’ve seen here, he is far closer to Markus than to Arthur, no offence, my dear.” He tossed an apologetic look towards the housekeeper. “I  just think that you are right, saying that you do not know what Connor is.”

Hank still felt uncomfortable at even considering the idea of Connor being a deviant. What the old painter was saying seemed grounded and logical, but Hank knew what the deviants were capable of and felt a great deal of unease at coming in contact with any. Even if them being aggressive wasn’t their fault, it still boiled down to dangerous behavior. “He has been written that way…”

Mr. Manfred tilted his head in a cocky way. “Just like Markus.”

The Lieutenant’s eyes widened as he realized that  both the androids belonged to a shared line , even though Connor had been finished by the company after the departure of the CEO. And both had been originally personal projects of Elijah Kamski. The man who was supposedly friends with the painter sitting in front of him.

“Do  _ you _ know what Connor is?”

“I think he himself is the only one who knows.” The old painter straightened his back, sitting more comfortably on the couch and smoothing his silk robe out. “But I understand what you are asking about. And I have no idea. If you are wondering what Elijah had been trying to achieve with the RK series, I couldn’t tell you. We are good friends, sharing a mutual interest in philosophy and many other fields of knowledge, but he had always been secretive about his true motives. I believe that he derives a great deal of pleasure from watching other people try to solve his riddles, and he had no mercy even for me.” He chuckled and gestured for his android to take the cup away from him.

Hank dropped his gaze and stared at his notebook thoughtfully. He was trying to come up with a censored, Fowler-friendly version of their talk and sort through the  advice Mr. Manfred had given him. It occurred to the Lieutenant that he had been granted no immediate solution, even though the things he had learned were tremendously helpful and reassuring. Almost as if the painter was trying to coax Hank into thinking on his own, instead of just pointing at the answer, but still leading him in the right direction at the same time. He smiled softly, realizing that Markus was probably an outstanding leader, if he had learned anything from his father.

“I think Connor is probably already finishing the search. I should join him before he gets suspicious about what is taking us so long. Thank you for everything… I mean it. Really.” Hank said sincerely, pouring all his gratitude in those words. He hadn’t felt so hopeful in a long time.

“You’re welcome.” Mr. Manfred smiled back and raised his hand, attracting Arthur’s attention. “Give me something to write, please.”

The AP700 produced a small block of minimalist business cards with only the name of the painter printed on them in small letters. He gave the artist a pen and the human leaned over the table, scribbling something on the paper, before giving it to Hank. “I think that you, more than anyone, deserve to be able to speak to me, should the need arise. If you ever have any problems... Don’t hesitate to call. I will try to help as best as I can.”

The Lieutenant couldn’t believe his eyes as  his gaze traced the dynamic, handwritten digits making up a phone number. He had been speechless at the amount of trust the artist had in him. And the support he was showing. “I… I don’t know what to say… Thank you…”

“That will do.” Manfred chuckled. “Thanks is more than enough. I only expect you to take a good care of Connor in return. Everyone deserves happiness : humans, androids and deviants alike.”

Hank nodded, placed the business card carefully in his wallet, and stood up, looking around to locate his partner. He didn’t have to search the whole residence though, as Arthur spoke up, seeing Hank’s efforts. “The RK800 is currently in the studio.”

Hank thanked the android and moved towards the direction Mr. Manfred had pointed at earlier. He entered a spacious room, even bigger than the one he had just left, entirely built out of glass except two walls connecting it to the house and the ceiling. The interior was littered with stilages and shelves full of jars with paint, brushes, solvents, cloths and other painting equipment. A lot of beautiful pieces of art hung on the walls, or  were propped against them like the ones in  the living room. In the middle of the studio, there was a gigantic unfinished canvas, three times taller than Hank and longer than his own bedroom, next to a mechanical crane, probably allowing the artist to reach the highest places of his painting. But Connor was not examining any of it.

Hank stepped  into the dimly lit room, the light from the tall glass walls obscured by white curtains. He walked by a few book shelves filled with various objects splattered in colorful dots. And he found the android standing next to the wall on the left, turned to the narrow crack between two curtains.

He was holding his hand up in a tiny, golden ray of sunlight that seeped through the opening, cupping his hand as if he could catch the stream of light like water. Hank smiled, feeling his heart swell at the sight of a tiny, genuine smile Connor had on his face, as he watched one of his dreams come true with excitement and speechless awe.

“Hey, son. How’s the sunlight?” He said softly, joining Connor. The android just shook his head, seemingly unable to utter a word. But Hank didn’t really need him to voice his opinion. It was clear that whatever Connor had expected sunlight to be paled in comparison with reality. With the rich, warm glow of the rays entering the room, with the tiny particles of dust dancing in swirls in the light, with the way how it brought up the richest, most saturated colors wherever it fell.

Hank wasn’t exactly sure why Connor wanted to see it so badly, but then again, he was aware that his perspective on life differed significantly from someone who had never had a childhood and the majority of their life had been  spent in an underground lab, devoid of any windows, or even colors, if the rooms Hank had been in were anything to go by.  _ No wonder Connor liked that tie… _

“It’s… beautiful. I love it…” Connor said finally, with cracking voice and Hank’s smile only widened as he observed pure happiness on his son’s face.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooo, a hopeful chapter here :) ...guess what's next?
> 
> BTW, a lot of points I made here are inspired by the brilliancy of Blade Runner. If you've never seen that movie, go watch it right now! Both the first part and 2049, they are along with Interstellar my favorite movies EVER. Some people find it hard to understand all the different layers of the plot in them at first, but I tell you, it's worth trying. All the theories, the symbolism, the philosophy behind all of that, it would be enough to just watch the movies for it alone, but the soundtrack and visuals, and pretty much anything else is just... I can't praise it enough, I'm biased XDD  
> Blade Runners are probably the reasons why I love DBH so much. And why I'm not satisfied with how a lot of philosophical problems of creating artificial life, identity, freedom, oppression or humanism have barely been scraped in the game.
> 
> Also, fun fact, do you know that "Blade Runner" has been translated as "Łowca Androidów" in Poland, which literally means "The Hunter of Androids"? And I've heard from Kitty Lue that Connor's story reminded a lot of people about Blade Runners' plot....
> 
> Seriously, BL2049 is DBH, but better, go watch it, at least that one, it deserves to be watched by every single soul capable of thinking.
> 
> Uhh sorry for the rant, I just...  
> What do you think about Carl? And my reasoning? Did you enjoy? Let me know :)


	42. Deviation From The Norm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Certain patterns appeared in Connor's life in cycles, even though he did everything in his power to prevent the lows in his behavior. Because he hated the reaction that was infallibly caused by a certain type of actions on his part.
> 
> But it was the norm, he had no way of changing it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, how many of you enjoyed the last fluffy chapter?  
> Well, if you know me well enough, you are aware that it couldn't last for long....
> 
> This thing, once it is over will change some things for good. It starts now, though it will last for a while....

They returned to the Lieutenant’s home a few hours after nightfall, having searched the artist’s residence. Connor dedicated the time during the ride to filling and sending a brief report to the Captain, to let him know how it had gone and that they would send a fully-fledged report tomorrow. His owner seemed very pleased with the interrogation and Connor had found several clues during his search too. Though he still had to consult with the human about them.

“Markus enjoyed painting and drawing. Art in general. A lot of deviants seem to have a need to express themselves in a similar way, yet they usually resort to just writing ‘rA9’ wherever they please. Do you think it’s connected with the message, or they feel the need to, uh… perform the action of creating glyphs?” Connor wondered aloud, remembering that every location they had visited that had housed a deviant had been marked by an android in one way or another.

The human shrugged. “Humans make art for a lot of reasons. You don’t really have to be particularly good at it to derive pleasure from drawing. Writing and pictures on the walls are usually made strictly for that reason. Besides, it’s hard to believe that those deviants were trying to leave a message for us, we were never meant to be in those places. I think it was for their own enjoyment.”

“Enjoyment…” Connor echoed, looking at his hands resting in his lap. He took out his coin, the one minted in 1994 that felt exactly the same as the one from 2012, but was so much better, and started tossing it around, thinking. “Is it enjoyable for humans to write?”

“Depends. It’s neutral, usually, but it can also be art… uh… drawing too, I believe. When you have to draw something for utilitarian reasons, like showing others what the room arrangement in your new apartment looks like, it’s nothing special. But you can also use it as a way of letting out what’s bothering you. Expressing yourself. Unwinding your thoughts. You can clear your head that way or create something new, so even drawing a few straight lines can be enjoyable or cathartic…” He grunted and shrugged. “At least, that’s what my therapist says.

“She has to be right, then.” Connor looked out the window of the car and saw a couple taking five dogs on a walk. They jumped and played with each other, tangling the leashes and making the humans laugh. The android looked at them in awe, never having seen so many dogs in one place, but then he remembered another clue. “Those canaries belonged to Markus. He drew them several times and seemed to really like them. I found a note in which he referred to them as ‘his’.”

“Why would an android need to leave a note? Was he forgetting things?”

“It was for Leo. The RK200 asked the painter’s son not to turn the animals off. I don’t think it had any effect. I found it crumpled on the floor next to Markus’ doors.” Connor said, recalling soft chirping of the joyful little androids. “I don’t know much about animal androids, but temporary deactivation is not particularly pleasant for me. I hope they are all right...” He added quietly.

“So, yet another deviant fond of animals…” The question lingered in the air and Connor turned his head to look at his owner and try to understand what he meant, but the human’s eyes were focused on the road. “Why androids, though? I thought that they liked the live ones? Is there any difference between artificial and real when it comes to that?”

This question surprised Connor. “I… didn’t pay much attention to that detail. I… uh. The animal androids are significantly easier to program in a realistic way than human ones, so it’s hard to tell them apart behavior-wise, I suppose…” He was thinking for a while. “Though I was perfectly aware I interacted with machines when I approached the cage… It seems…” Connor couldn’t make sense of that. He fell quiet, tossing the coin between his hands.

“Well, I guess that it’s not much of a difference, then.” Hank sighed and waved his hand, choosing to drop the subject for later. “Anything else?”

“He liked poetry. And books in general. It seems that Mr. Manfred encouraged him to read a lot.”

“Smart. Books are the best for exercising imagination and most problems are caused by people lacking it. What did he read?”

They talked about Connor’s findings for the rest of the ride, but when they got home and Connor asked about the questioning, Hank claimed that he felt tired and wanted to relax now. Connor got the notebook the Lieutenant had written Mr. Manfred’s statements in to look through as Hank helped himself to a portion of fruit salad left from this morning. There wasn’t much, but Connor shrugged it off, deciding that his owner had probably just abbreviated the artist’s exuberant speech to the gist of what he had said. Besides, the prototype had other things to think about right now. After his evening meal, Hank always took Sumo and Connor for a long walk and the android enjoyed them a lot.

A tiny little voice reminded him that he was favoring walking a dog over thinking about advancing his mission and Connor froze.

Connor knew he shouldn’t do things like that. The smile, which unknowingly appeared on his face at the thought of throwing a stick for Sumo once they got to the forest, vanished immediately and Connor’s head whipped around quickly to see if the Lieutenant, still sitting at the table and finishing the last bits of apples and bananas, saw his reaction. The human acted protective every time he saw Connor returning to the right track, and it was getting increasingly harder for the android to keep himself from sharing his unruly thoughts when his owner acted so compassionately. But he had to stay away from him.

Thankfully, the couch where Connor was seated was far from the kitchen and even though the Lieutenant could see him, it didn’t appear as though he had noticed Connor flinch. The android let out a long breath and looked at his lap, at the spiral-bound notebook and mechanical pencil hooked on the metal loops his owner used at crime scenes.

Connor felt his fingers itch. He slowly unclipped the pencil and took it into his hand gingerly, examining it. It fit nicely into his hand, profiled ergonomically to be enjoyable to hold.

Was it really a good way to unwind? _The therapist said so and humans are always right…_ Connor had a lot to share and he couldn’t talk to anyone. Maybe writing it down would be an answer? Entering stasis at night was getting increasingly difficult for him. Now the faulty memories plaguing him were not the only problem, as Connor often found himself unable to even initiate the cycle, his mind kept awake by the tightness of his throat and snippets of what he had done and what had been done to him. He was thankful for the new, more powerful batteries, because it wasn’t uncommon for him to just lay in the dark the entire night with his face pressed into the pillow wet with his tears, trying to stop soundless sobs that were overtaking him seemingly for no reason. His newfound inability to perform stasis could affect the investigation negatively if it hadn’t been for the improvements made by the technicians.

Choosing physical over mental suffering used to help a lot, even though Amanda wasn’t fond of that technique. Connor could sleep through physical pain, he had learned that very early into his development. The thoughts and memories that hurt weren’t that easy, but once he had another thing to focus on, he could push them down to subconsciousness. But for some reason, the scissors he had been utilizing to wound himself had vanished from the cabinet in the bathroom and he was unable to find any other suitable knife in the house.

Connor examined the pencil once more and then clipped it back into place. _Only deviants draw for fun or enjoyment. I can’t enjoy anything even if my mind thinks otherwise._ Besides, it was the Lieutenant’s notebook, not his. He couldn’t just take it and start using it like that.

Instead, he closed his eyes and tried to initiate the Zen Garden program to report to Amanda about today’s findings, but was met with an unresponsive void. Connor furrowed his brows, worried. Amanda had said that it was getting increasingly difficult for them to reach each other, but Connor had been sure he had at least a few gigabytes of transfer left on his limited link to the server housing Amanda’s AI. Short interaction should still have been possible, even outside investigation.

Unless Connor had used his data on sharing files with Amanda earlier. But he remembered no such thing.

He bit his lip, not sure how to proceed. The prototype had been listening intently to his handler and tried to follow her orders to the letter. Was she punishing him again? But Connor had done so much to stay away from Hank… _Maybe it’s just an error?_ _Maybe she is going to contact me once I gather enough transfer to do it?_ He really hoped that it was true.

“Hey, Con, are you ready?” He heard his owner call and he moved to follow him to the doors. At least, he had a walk to tear his mind away from other things now. Thinking about the mission right now would be no use anyway, Hank wanted to relax and Connor needed his supervision to fill in a report. He hoped that Amanda wouldn’t have been too angry at him for enjoying walking Sumo, if she could have seen him right now.

* * *

The night was snowy and the stars were obstructed by the clouds once again, but that didn’t bother Connor too much. He disliked blizzards and the harsh sting of heavy, frosty snowfall on his cheeks for reasons he couldn’t exactly define, but the gentle dance of fluffy snowflakes in the air, swirling and catching gracefully on their clothes and Sumo’s fur never failed to mesmerize him. Connor thought that he liked that kind of snow, before remembering that he actually didn’t like anything at all. The knowledge that it was just an illusion didn’t prevent the walk from being enjoyable, however.

When they went back home, Hank watched the news for a while, while Connor busied himself with cleaning the kitchen. Some movie started and for a moment, Connor’s head perked up when he saw a police officer, seemingly belonging to an artificially developed species of human-looking slaves, hunting one of his own who disobeyed their Masters. But then the android remembered that he was not supposed to watch movies or lose focus on his task, so he forced himself to stop watching, even though the visuals were stunning, and the Lieutenant, who had fallen asleep on the couch, didn’t seem to mind him stealing an occasional glance at the TV. Amanda probably would have, so Connor chose not to disobey.

He woke Hank up at about the time the human usually went to sleep and began to make up his own bed, laying down the charging mat and the bedding the Lieutenant had given him. This day was mostly good, he had learned for sure that he wasn’t a deviant, they had gone to a nice place to question a human, who had given them significantly less trouble than anticipated and had even been nice to Connor, but without forcing him to do anything that could upset Amanda. And Connor had seen the sunlight, finally. He allowed himself a little purr, digging into the soft cushions and feeling the weight of a satisfied Saint Bernard pressing him reassuringly into the couch.

He usually had no problems falling into stasis on days like that one. And surprisingly, it wasn’t a corrupted memory replay that had woken him up this time. Connor opened his eyes sluggishly, moving his hand from hugging Sumo to rub on his own face tiredly, his cognitive functions slowly springing to life after the stasis cycle had been broken. Again, he heard the same muffled, high-pitched melody that had torn him out of standby, followed by an incoherent curse from his owner’s room. The human’s voice was too quiet and distorted by the walls separating them for Connor to understand, but he could tell that Hank was angry.

 _No wonder_ , Connor thought, rolling onto his other side and rearranging snoring dog on top of him. _I had a nice moment of rest too. With an emphasis on ‘_ **_had_ ** _’. Who calls people at three in the morning?_

But to his surprise, after a long moment of silence, he heard his owner say something again, meaning that he hadn’t ended the call yet. Connor furrowed his brows, opening one eye to see the glow of his yellow LED intensify. Hank wasn’t known for patience and certainly not with people who bothered him when he didn’t want to be bothered. Why hadn’t he hung up and gone back to sleep yet?

And then Connor felt a message reach his own processor, an urgent notice from the DPD. He felt anxiety ignite in his core, as he sat up, and opened the correspondence.

_‘All patrols from the Capitol Park Historic District on standby are ordered to deploy immediately to the Capitol Park Plaza, a large group of androids is reported to have started riots there, two officers on patrol from Central DPD Station were attacked, called for backup. The machines are armed and dangerous. The androids dispersed, chase is in progress.’_

Connor sprang up out of his bed, startling Sumo who blinked at him sleepily, just in time to see Hank emerging from his bedroom with a set of clothes under his arm.

“Hurry up, Connor, we need to be in Capitol Park _ASAP_. Fowler sent you a message?” His voice was trembling slightly, he spoke in hurried, fakely leveled words, Connor could hear barely contained fear in his owner’s voice.

Combined with the Lieutenant’s usual reluctance to treat the deviant investigation too seriously, Hank’s reaction to the notice made Connor feel even more uneasy than before.  
This notice wouldn’t have been sent to them while off duty if the riots hadn’t been started by their targets - the Lieutenant wouldn’t have been so moved if something horrible hadn’t happened.

“I y-yes, Hank, why… What is h-happening? Why are you so worried?” Connor tried to keep his own voice calm, but couldn’t help his stress level climbing as he saw Hank, always so calm and indifferent, now visibly alarmed. The human turned to him, already halfway in the bathroom, with his hand on the handle to shut the door quickly.

“The officers on the patrol that responded first were Henry Bennett and Chris Miller.”

* * *

The car sped quickly, probably too fast for Hank’s liking, judging from the way he clutched the ceiling handle and how pale he was. It didn’t stop Connor from driving as fast as he could for it to be safe, though. He was determined for more reasons than one to get to Capitol Park as fast as he could.

The reports appearing on the frequencies used by the cops working at this case were contradictory and inaccurate, uttered by officers hurriedly and often missing the details Connor was most interested in. He hadn’t heard anything about any success capturing the deviants yet. Nor had he heard whether officers Bennett and Miller were safe and unharmed.

“They lost Markus’ group. The deviant leader had been seen near the corner of Woodward Avenue and Clifford Street, but he managed to escape the round-up with most of the deviants who followed him after he and North separated to evade the police.” Connor gritted his teeth, recounting the freshest report to Hank.

“Jesus, how do you know? Are you texting right now? While driving 65 miles per hour?!”

“I’m listening to the radio feed from the dispatched units.” Connor slowed down to turn the street and accelerated again, ignoring Hank’s whimper. The streets had just been plowed and there was virtually no traffic at this time. Despite that, Connor was painfully aware that the chase after the deviants will probably be over when they arrive at the scene.

“Fucking hell, I hope you’re at least that good at multitasking…” Hank tapped his phone, trying in vain again to call Chris. It was quite understandable that the Officer was beyond their reach right now, even if he was unharmed, but it still made both Hank and Connor uneasy each time he failed to answer. Suddenly, the Lieutenant lifted his eyes, wide in horror, as if something dawned at him. “Shit, you got distracted by fucking birdies yesterday, I shouldn’t have let you drive, slow down _now_.”

“No.” Connor replied calmly, choosing his mission over Hank’s request. Amanda would have been proud. But it didn’t silence a sting of guilt at scaring Hank, who hadn’t had the best experiences with speeding in snowy weather. “We are almost at the scene anyway. And I need to have at least a shadow of a chance to catch an operational deviant.”

Hank muttered a curse and Connor felt a pang of fear and uneasiness deep in his mind, even though he had hoped that the pruner had dealt with silly instabilities like that one. They weren’t going to crash, Connor was equipped with the ability to drive no worse than the best racers in the USA. But he was also aware that Hank didn’t care about statistics and was afraid anyway. Connor thought that he hated making the human feel unsafe or ignoring his pleas, even though Amanda had said that he was unable to have any opinions.

Luckily, Connor caught a message that had a potential of quelling some of their fears. “Officers Miller and Bennett have been hospitalized. They are in shock, but they didn’t sustain any injuries.”

“Oh my God, lucky bastards…” Hank sighed in relief. “Shit, I’m so glad… Chris is able to charm even those bloodthirsty machines into not hurting him! What a mir-“

Another report came in and Connor was forced to turn left sharply to follow the fresh tracks, drifting, which sent Hank crashing into the door. “I suggest you check your passenger belt later, Lieutenant. Could I borrow your gun?” The android asked when his owner was done cursing and threatening to twist his neck if he didn’t slow down.

“Ff-fuck… Connor, you’re gonna kill us….”

“Hank, I’m perfectly in control of the situation. Could I borrow your gun?” He repeated, this time more insistently, because they were closing in on the alley where the red-haired android was reported to have been seen mere minutes ago. She had been leading half of all the deviants from the Plaza, but now was reputedly accompanied by just a mere fraction of that. Connor knew that it could mean either that they had dispersed again, or… she had led them to safety and returned for those who had failed to keep up with the initial group.

Connor pulled the hand brake, letting the car slide to a stop on its own and escaping it in a swift jump and roll. Despite Hank’s terrified screams, the vehicle avoided crashing into anything and stopped gracefully, rocking a bit upon stilling, but Connor had already been too far away to see that.

He dashed by the police car and startled officers who had provided the report about the WR400. Not having any time to waste, he jumped on the chain link fence, seizing it in one push up and roll, picking himself up momentarily to chase after the deviants. He readied Hank’s gun, throwing open the safety lock, and engaged all his tracking devices, smelling thirium in the air. Snow had stopped falling half an hour ago and the tracks were well-preserved.

Or at least, would have been, if the female android hadn’t covered them in sloppy, but annoyingly effective attempts. Connor clenched his jaws as he had to resign from following easily noticeable footprints and take more time to distinguish between the piles of snow left from clearing the street and those left by the WR400 who had seemingly stolen a shovel and disrupted her affiliates’ tracks in the most important places.

But Connor had been made to hunt. He chose a dark alley almost instinctively, taking in subtle clues no one else would even have turned their attention to. A suspicious imprint here, snow brushed from a wall by a hand there, all that led him quickly after his targets. For a brief moment, he even heard the muffled chatter of many voices, both frightened and bold, but when he jumped out to a small backyard between several dilapidated tenement houses, he saw no deviants there.

Connor refused to believe that. He had been so close! He had heard the voices! The hunter quickly shook off a small thought that told him about how similar they sounded to wind tugging on a tarpaulin covering a car wreck under a brick wall or how hard they were to really distinguish from police sirens wailing in the distance. _Those had to have been the deviants. Ỉ̱ ͇̼̍͑kn̥͉͋ow̰̖̌͡ ̼̝͋̉i͔͞t._

He shook his head, ridding himself from doubts and quivering fear sprouting in his bowels. He hadn’t hurt the dog rose just to waste this opportunity on some stupid instabilities. _I need to focus, I need to think ra͉͒t͔͐i͂ͅo͉̾na̟͐l̙͡ly̗̎!_ There was no other way out of this place than the alley he came from, or through one of these houses, but the majority of them were walled up to the second floor; what’s more, there were no appendages on their facades potentially allowing regular androids to climb high enough to reach hollow windows. Connor quickly swept them with his eyes and determined that the buildings couldn’t have provided any substantial hiding places to even a small group of deviants. One or two might have fit, but the group had been reported to be as large as seven. The holes in the walls and makeshift planks acting as covers would have made it impossible for so many to hide from Connor’s infrared vision, now even more powerful after the last re-draft done when Detective Reed had damaged his eye.

In the yard, there were only a pile of old tires, the car wreck that Connor had already determined to be empty, a dumpster, also completely safe, and a manhole.

Now, that was an interesting trope. But there were no tracks around it, no thirium and the snow was completely devoid of any footprints. No android could enter the sewers and leave the entrance in such a perfectly inconspicuous state.

Unless someone had stayed behind to cover the tracks of the group and was now hiding in one of the houses.

Connor raised the gun, training it at the building easiest to access, but before he could do anything at all, he heard a loud shout from behind that made him flinch. “FREEZE!”

Connor’s first reaction was to spin around and train his weapon at whoever was threatening him, but as soon as he did that, he indeed froze in surprise seeing the police officers whom he had passed earlier, both crammed in the entrance to the alley with their guns pointed at his head.

He tilted it, opening his mouth hesitantly, but before he could speak, a gunshot rang in the air and a plume of snow rose from the ground a few inches to his right where the bullet had struck it. Connor’s mouth ran dry.

“Consider it a warning shot, you plastic asshole.” One of the men sneered, his finger already pressing on the trigger again. “The next one will be through your forehead if you try anything like that again. Now, be a good machine and put the gun away.”

“Officer, I must inform you-“ Connor started in an apprehensive voice, lowering his weapon to the ground to show that he was not a threat, but one of the men interrupted him.

“Shut up, you fucking deviant! Drop the gun and hands on your neck, NOW! Kneel!”

Connor lowered himself slowly, feeling his hands begin to tremble. He realized that it was one giant misunderstanding that could potentially end very badly for him. The officers were from another precinct, they didn’t know him. Not everyone had to watch the brief coverage about him on TV and the hostage situation once widely discussed on the news had happened over four months ago. The officer had seen neither the Lieutenant nor his car, as Connor had opted to leave them behind on the street before following the lead on foot, deciding that it would have been quicker this way.

To them, Connor was just an android, armed and unsupervised, in his original uniform, just like many of the deviants liberated by North and Markus from the store on Capitol Park Plaza this night. His eyes widened slightly as the gravity of the situation dawned on him.

Connor put down the gun, sliding it towards the officers, and dropped to his knees with his hands in the air. If there was indeed a deviant lurking in the tenement houses around him, they had to be having a great time watching him right now. The hunter swallowed a lump in his throat and spoke up again, keeping his eyes on the faces of the officers, having trouble withstanding their gazes.

“Officers Jackson Foster and Harold Hill. I am not a deviant. My name is Connor and I’m a detective prototype sent by CyberLife to assist Lieutenant Anderson…“ Connor tried to reason with them, but as soon as he began talking, both men flinched, probably creeped out that the android suddenly knew their names. Connor had thought that it would have shown them that he utilized government database and therefore was trustworthy. He had clearly miscalculated.

“Fucking machine…” One of them, a young black man spat, his stress level climbing in Connor’s HUD. _Shit…_ “How the fuck does it know our names?”

The other one, instead of responding, suddenly left his spot and approached Connor in lurching steps, keeping him at gunpoint. Connor couldn’t help his breath quickening as the blonde man reached for his hand and wringed it behind his back, pressing the barrel of the gun to Connor’s LED so hard that the skin around retracted from abuse.

While the RK800’s tendons and muscles had been built of a far more resistant and flexible material than humans’, so Connor could still free himself from the Officer’s grip, ignoring the pain that flared up his shoulder, the gun literally piercing his temple was another case. He could try to escape it, he had done much more dangerous combat moves in his development, but… there was still a risk of him not making it. And he would likely have to incapacitate the Officers to keep them from killing him.

Connor had just been dead. He didn’t want to repeat the experience after only a week.

“P-please… I’m with the DPD, please l-let me go…” Connor tried to keep his voice calm and steady, but some of the fear he felt crept into it despite his efforts. “Just ask Lieutenant Anderson, he is m-my owner and I act as his partner, do-“

He was struck in the face with the butt of the gun and saw bright lights dance in his vision for a brief second of short-circuit before the barrel on his temple returned and he realized he was now laying on the snow, pressed into it by the weapon and his left hand painfully twisted by the white officer. “Cuff it, Jackson. I’ll keep it subdued for you… isn’t it the first one captured yet today?”

But before the other Officer could say anything and use the cuffs he had prepared, Connor gasped quietly in relief as he saw a familiar outline in the opening of the alley. “Conno-… You motherfuckers! Let him go, NOW!”

Seeing no LEDs on Hank’s temple and no triangles on his jacket, the men didn’t react as fiercely as they did in Connor’s case, as the Lieutenant ran up to them. Officer Foster stepped forth with his hands raised soothingly, still holding the cuffs. “I’m sorry, Sir, but you need to leave. This place is not safe fo-“

It was his turn to be interrupted, as Hank didn’t waste time on words and just punched the man right in his nose. The younger cop reeled at the force of the blow and stepped aside, clutching his face and giving Hank free passage towards his colleague. The Lieutenant gripped Officer’s Hill’s wrist and tore the gun away from Connor’s temple, unceremoniously head butting the man afterwards. When the Officer stepped back, trying to assume a defensive pose, Hank turned to Connor, still lying on the snow. “Jesus, Con, you all right? What did those bastards do to you?”

The android wanted to say that he was okay, but before he could, Hank gingerly pressed his hand to Connor’s face and swiped his thumb under the android’s lower lip. His fingers came out stained blue.

“Oh.” Connor touched his face himself and only now the pain began to creep back into his mouth, numb to this moment due to adrenaline and snow he had been pressed to. “It’s just a split lip, Hank... But… The deviant!”

The hunter was fine with being beaten, he was used to humans attacking him for their own reasons, but what was truly wrong with this unnecessary intervention, was the fact that it tore everyone’s attention away from the tenement houses, possibly providing a hiding spot for the deviant who had covered the tracks of the group. Connor was aware that the machines in the sewers were probably long gone, but there had been a substantial chance to catch the one hiding in the yard. _Had been_ , because he saw that one of the wooden doors not blocked with planks on the first floor, previously closed and barricaded with a few wooden crates, was now gaping, showing a street behind them. There were several footprints roughly matching the size of WR400s’ feet in the snow in front of them, but the pavement on the other side had been cleaned and couldn’t let him track the android down. Connor gritted his teeth in frustration and spat the thirium that seeped from his lip onto the snow. There was no use chasing after her now. WR400s were slower than the RK800, but in an open city full of hiding places and ways to evade him Connor would never have found her without a trail to follow.

“Just a split lip- my ass, fucking morons… You’d have lost a few teeth if you were a human!” Hank was by no means satisfied with hitting each of the policemen just once and made a few steps towards Officer Hill, his face twisting in anger. “What the fuck did you think you were doing, huh?! Let’s hear your stellar argument for attacking my partner, I’m fucking waiting!”

But the man backed out, raising his gun at Hank, certainly not flattered by the threats coming from the shaggy Lieutenant. Probably because Hank had yet to flash his badge and he over-all didn’t come across as a decorated officer. “Stay back, or I’ll shoot. You are under arrest for att-“

Connor could take a gun pointed at himself, but never at Hank. He narrowed his eyes and lunged at the Officer from where he was crouching, tackling the human to the ground and twisting his weapon out of his grasp. The man shrieked in surprise but couldn’t do anything as Connor rolled to his feet immediately and grabbed the Officer’s wrist in the same fluid movement, twisting it painfully and digging a knee into the human’s back. The android pinned him and put the gun to the back of his head all in the blink of an eye. Then, Connor raised his gaze to see if Hank, staring at him in sheer shock, was all right.

“Fuckfuckfuckfuck!...” Officer Foster fumbled with his own gun, dropping the cuffs and drawing the weapon with trembling fingers. But Hank pushed his hands down before he could train it on Connor, finally pulling his badge out and waving it in front of the younger man’s eyes.

“Get that gun even an inch closer to him and you’re gonna be in an ocean of shit up to your neck. Here, you can have it for a while, if you’re too dense to already know who I am.” He pressed the badge to the Officer’s chest, using so much force that the younger cop had to take a step back. Then, the Lieutenant turned to face Connor, still waiting obediently for instructions, with focused, attentive eyes following Hank, completely unmoved by the man writhing under his weight.

“Connor, can you tell me what the fuck you’re doing?” Hank raised two hands placatingly, as if he was negotiating in a hostage situation. The android furrowed his brows and tilted his head in confusion. Everything he had done was in accordance with his program, even though it didn’t demand such extensive actions from him.

“I’m protecting you. Officer Hill was threatening you with a service weapon, I couldn’t let him hurt you…” Connor had been acting upon instinct. While launching himself at the human, he had been quick to do everything in his power to ensure Hank’s safety. Now, an anxious hesitation began to creep into his mind. _Is Hank a̹̐n͔̈gr͚͗ỹ̫ a͓̓t ̨͕̈́̀m̢̮͍̐̾̾e͚͖̹͊̇?̢̯̮̌̿͞... A̴̩͚͔͛̿͢͠g̸̛͔͖̹̒̑̔ä̷̜͓́̌̒̓î̴͕̰̹̖͙̀̎̊͘͜n̵̮̮̤̹̗̳͆̍͗̔̉̕?_

But the Lieutenant just sighed and shot him a strange stare. “Connor, I think you’re safe to let him go now. I bet that even such a giant idiot as him isn’t going to threaten me or you anymore, knowing that _we are both on the fucking force and_ _in an_ _active investigation they have disrupted._ ” The Lieutenant put a heavy emphasis on those words, moving his gaze from Connor to the Officer he was restraining. Even though he saw much more ire and hostility in his owner’s glare while it was targeted at the human than at him, Connor still felt anxious.

“What the- And…ffuck, let me go, you plastic… And who even are you?” Officer Hill was radiating humiliation and fear masked by anger as Connor put the gun away and released him, standing up and walking to Hank’s side.

“Uh… It was telling the truth…” Officer foster said bashfully, still examining the badge. “He is Lieutenant Hank Anderson from the Central PS… And…. Okay, we might have overreacted…” He shot his colleague a scared look, holding Hank’s badge for him to see. The other human looked shaken, but he tried shrugging that off.

“How could we know, it was a fucking android carrying a gun, dashing between us like a devil was chasing it! While we were supposed to be on the lookout for armed deviants, trying to escape from the police…” The blonde man gestured wildly, trying to cover his embarrassment with arrogance. Connor observed a large bruise forming on his cheek, where Hank had bashed him.

The Lieutenant raised an eyebrow. “Do you have problems reading? Haven’t you noticed bright-ass, luminescent RK800s on every possible side of his jacket? Or maybe you haven’t seen the report sent to all precincts at the beginning of November, informing every officer, even those as retarded as you, of an android being assigned to the deviant case? _To fucking avoid_ _mistaking_ _him for a deviant during the investigations?!_ Next time I’m gonna have them send fucking coloring books instead, for cretins like you to understand!”

“I was actively pursuing a suspect who escaped due to your overreaction.” Connor narrowed his eyes at the men. His own irritation began taking place of the fear he had felt at the sight of a gun trained on him. No matter how many times he died, staring down a barrel would never cease to distress him. “I have a serious basis to assume that it was one of the four androids who had hijacked Channel Sixteen’s studio two weeks prior.”

Hank whistled, his face taking on amusement as he observed both the Officers pale. “Well, shiiiit, that’s gonna be one hell of a report to write on you, isn’t it?” His voice suddenly dropped to be threatening again. “Come on, Con, we got other deviants to catch, hopefully without any cretins around this time. You know where they’re from so that I can destroy their careers?”

“Sixth Precinct, serving as Reserve Officers under Captain Virginia Sanders, I’ve already sent a draft for the complaint to your e-mail, Lieutenant.” Connor made sure to speak loud enough for the young policemen to hear. He was sure that Hank would draw consequences for threatening them, but it would probably not be as grave as complete annihilation of the Officers’ service. Still, he wanted to get back at them for making him let North escape. She would have been such an incredibly useful asset to CyberLife…

Those thoughts accompanied him on their way back to the car. Connor had been too caught up in the situation, the danger both him and Hank were in, to actually realize the gravity of this mistake. It wasn’t even his own, but it still meant all the same: CyberLife had lost a chance to capture one of the leaders of revolution and Connor had lost his chance to impress Amanda.

What’s more, Hank only made sure that Connor was undamaged, apart from that split lip, and then hadn’t uttered a word to him after the end of the talk with the Officers. He still didn’t look as angry as that night… But Connor couldn’t help icy fear crystallizing in his chest anyway.

When they stopped by the car, Connor gripped the driver’s door’s handle, but was quickly stopped by the human. “Oh, no. No, I’m driving now. Get in the passenger side, Connor.”

He wasn’t speaking in a voice heavy with hidden anger, but he still didn’t sound normal. Connor froze with his hand on the handle to gawk at Hank with wide eyes, afraid, but as soon as the Lieutenant returned the look, he scrambled to fulfill his order, not wanting to aggravate him anymore.

They entered the vehicle and Connor could feel icy claws gripping his insides, the thirium in his veins running cold. He tried to ignore all of those sensations, knowing that Hank’s anger at him didn’t matter, that Amanda was the one he was supposed to please and the Lieutenant could only be a nice addition at best. But the Garden was far away and Connor couldn’t help his rising stress level, even though he knew that he shouldn’t be concerned with the human.

He kept stealing quick glances at his owner as Hank drove the car significantly slower than Connor had towards the Capitol Park to investigate an already cold crime scene. Hank was mostly focused on the road, but he managed to catch a glimpse of Connor’s movement just as they had reached their destination.

Connor quickly straightened his posture and resumed staring ahead, appearing as emotionless as he was able to with the fear now roaring inside of his head, already knowing that Hank had noticed his behavior, but pretending that he hadn’t. It seemed as though it only served to make the human more suspicious.

“Con? What’s wrong?” Now his voice was affectionate again, even though it had been strange earlier. Even though Connor knew that it should have been disappointed and bitter. He had heard that before.

It wasn’t wise or in accordance with Connor’s guidelines not to answer, but he found himself just as unable to speak as in the Garden last time. The android just opened his mouth and closed it, not capable of even looking at Hank.

He heard the human shift closer and his voice became quieter and more worried as he spoke up again. “Kid, are you damaged? Did they break something?”

The prototype just shook his head and gathered his courage to ask one question, dropping himself from the verge of uncertainty to murky, dangerous waters below. He had no idea what awaited him, but was sure that it was nothing pleasant. “Are y-you angry at me?”

If Hank hadn’t been so close, he wouldn’t have been able to hear that, as Connor was almost out of breath, keeping as still as possible, feeling paralyzed for reasons unknown to him. He heard Hank shift again, but wasn’t physically able to look at him. Connor felt as though the slightest movement would make the human lash out at him.

But all he heard was a soft sigh. “No, Con, I’m not. I’m not angry… just worried.”

Connor didn’t answer, trying to speak wouldn’t have much of an effect anyway. He just moved his eyes slightly to look at Hank, but made sure that his head remained motionless. The human looked compassionate and sad. He didn’t appear angry at all, but Connor knew that some things were there, even if they appeared non-existent in reality.

“I’m just… Con, you have to be careful. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you…” He sighed again and put his hand on Connor’s cheek in a warm gesture. If the android could have been any more still, he would have been now. The caress was gentle, but in a situation like this, it could only mean o͈͐ne ̪̈́t̳͡hing…

“Connor, why didn’t you defend yourself from those assholes? You proved to be perfectly capable of telling them not to fuck with you, but only when that idiot pointed a gun at me. And yet, you had let him press it to your forehead earlier. Why?”

“I’m not allowed to harm humans. Unless they threaten other humans I’m supposed to protect.” Connor said quietly, reciting the lines from his programming. It’d been a long time since he had done that, but currently the android was too afraid to speak on his own.

Hank was silent for a long moment. “I know that they… That CyberLife expects crazy courage and recklessness from you at times… And I know that you were in control of the car, even though… I would never want you to drive so fast and with such bravado again. I understand why you did it. I know that your mission is important for you…”

Connor closed his eyes, unsure how to proceed with what Hank was saying. The human was understanding, wasn’t he? He knew that Connor didn’t have a choice, that he _had to_ obey Amanda. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad?

“But… please, don’t let it kill you, Con. You have to be safe, defend yourself if the situation calls for it. If I wasn’t there, they could have killed you just because they were fucking trigger-happy morons. You have to realize that your life is far more valuable than fulfilling your objective. ”

The android’s eyes shot open in time with his LED changing from yellow to bright red as he realized what the human was doing, trying to gently coax him away from his handler, sugarcoating disobedience and selling it to Connor as self-preservation. Hank was both faking his understanding for Connor’s actions and expressing displeasure with Amanda’s orders, just as she had said he would.

 _N̠͙̐͊̒͜o̦͌_. Connor had myriads of other lives to live, myriads of other bodies to inhabit in case of destruction of the current one. The promise that he wouldn’t have to die and wake up again, s͍̈́cȧ̤r̂r̂ed̗͂ ḁ̄n̒͌d̅ a̟͠fr̢̃ai͕̫͊͞d̹͇̆́, was a tempting, but treacherous one. Hank was trying to steal him.

But the hand on Connor’s cheek was so warm, so gentle. It wasn’t putting him in his place when Hank moved up and ruffled Connor’s soft tufts of hair. And yet, Connor knew what would happen inevitably. He just waited for the next question, for the moment when he would be forced to answer incorrectly and make Hank grip his hair painfully. It was just how things worked.

“I can’t be killed. And I can’t favor my survival over the guidelines or objectives I ought to follow. I’m just a machine.”

He braced himself for pain for giving Hank the truth instead of what he wanted to hear, but the blow never came. Hank didn’t pull his hair, didn’t press a pruner into his hand.

“Not to me, son.”

And the Lieutenant just squeezed his arm reassuringly one last time before exiting the car, leaving the confused android behind to mull over the deviation from the norm he had been used to.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connor: Are you angry at me?  
> Hank: No.  
> Connor: _rA9, he's totally angry at me_
> 
> Not a culmination yet. Connor has an important realization to make in the next chapter.
> 
> I'm sorry that I'm jumping back and forth between fluff and angst, but I want to illustrate here that people with poor mental health can feel horrible even though they are loved and cared for. Fixing it will take a while, but I promise that Connor will eventually push through that.


	43. Solid Foundations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes the truth takes a while to reach, but once it's done, one can feel that they are finally correct.
> 
> Even though it usually hurts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um... I'm sorry.
> 
> Trigger Warnings, probably, though I don't know for what. A lot of things. No suicidal thoughts in here, but there is violence and panic attacks and umm, you know, just morbid things.  
> I keep forgetting to add them, call me out when you feel they are necessary!

Connor slowly opened his owner’s car door and exited, following the human with his eyes. The situation was strange. Connor was not used to this kind of discipline. Both Hank and Amanda had been hurting him each time he disobeyed or disappointed them. Now, the Lieutenant did no such thing, even going as far as claiming that he was worried about Connor’s safety and showing him affection, while he should have been punishing him for his misdeeds. The android was cagey. Affection was for tasks well done. Worrying or displeasing his superiors in any other way always resulted in being hurt as retribution.

But there was little time to ruminate on Hank’s unusual ways of telling Connor off, as Ben Collins approached them, yawning and gripping his trusty tablet.

“Night, Hank… Or morning. Shit, it’s gonna be dawn soon… Freaking machines don’t need to sleep so they can run around the city at ungodly hours and vandalize streets…” The chubby Officer shook his head, complaining.

Connor turned his face away from the human to look at the scenery of Capitol Park, wondering if Markus was any different than himself. Officer Collins was wrong, at least as far as Connor was concerned, in regards to androids needing sleep. In fact, he was beginning to feel the effects of stasis-deprivation even despite his new power cells, not having slept well for a few days, either woken up by corrupted memories, unable to enter stasis at all, or like today, required to cut his rest short on behalf of an investigation. He sighed, rubbing his sore eyes and stopped behind his owner.

“I’ll take you to the alley where the androids attacked Chris and Henry… They are all right, I spoke with Fowler and he’s in touch with the hospital…” The man led them through a plaza crowded with police, putting holographic tapes around the scene and taking photos of the damage done by the machines. Connor was looking around with awe, seeing each symbol written in bright, holographic prints on walls like a statement impossible to ignore.

“How are they?” Hank asked quietly, his voice heavy with concern. “Con said that they had been hospitalized, but unharmed…”

“It’s true, hospitalization was kind of overkill, in my opinion, though Henry was thoroughly spooked. Can’t blame him; a crowd of angry, bloodthirsty machines wanting you dead probably isn’t the nicest view of all… Chris is holding up better, but he’s talking nonsense… At least, it sounds like it…” Officer Collins shrugged, looking like he was unsure what to make out of that situation.

Hank furrowed his brows. “What do you mean?”

“He says that Markus himself saved him… Like a fucking messiah…” The younger cop answered in a hushed voice, walking under an illuminated Christmas decoration hung above the street. It was a nice view, contrasting starkly with the scenery below. At least six androids laid lifeless on the snow, stained blue with thirium that had yet to evaporate. Their twisted bodies, posed as they had fallen under the bullets piercing their biocomponents, were dark against the snow-covered ground and bright police lights that painted the scene red and blue. Connor’s thirium pump stopped beating at the sight.

He had been proud to have provided Cyberlife with one deviant that had extensive damage to his processor just a week ago. Now they were stepping over numerous bodies of deviants, most of their skulls completely undamaged. The bullets had been targeted at their chests, legs, and abdomens. Slow deaths, but they left the processor intact.

 _Amanda must be so diś̢̤̻̑͠a͚͌pp̺͎̐̽oi̡̺͋̕n̨̰̬͆͘ẗ̲́e̜̅d̰̫̗̔͗͘,_ Connor thought hopelessly, glancing at the bodies of his own kind. _What kind of a specialized ḩ̆u̪̾n̊͜te̝͒ṛ̚ am I, if I’m less effective than any police officer carrying a gun?_

“Chris said that he was trying to stop the deviants without destroying them, firing first in the air, but Henry started shooting to kill when they tried to charge the alley.” Officer Collins gestured broadly in the direction the machines had come from. “The deviants assaulted and disarmed them, leaving their fate up for Markus to decide. Gotta say, the guy seems to have a hell of a hearing among those things…”

Hank hummed something, narrowing his eyes as soon as the word ‘things’ left his lips. “And maybe it’s for the better, don’t you think? Would you rather the androids’ leader be someone who would have taken revenge for their people Henry had killed?”

The Officer huffed. “Hank, I’m not going to argue with you, I didn’t even say anything bad about …him. I’m glad that Markus decided to let Chris and Henry go, but I’m not gonna forget that they had been at gunpoint in the first place.” He shook his head wearily and suddenly pointed at Connor. “Keep an eye on your own android, a lot of people here are far less understanding than I am. Just warning you, I know that Connor wouldn’t do anything like that, but others here don’t.”

“That’s how he got the split lip…” Hank sighed and gestured for Connor to follow him. Ben Collins’ advice was in fact valid, several officers were already scowling at Connor, and he had been on the scene for less than fifteen minutes now.

Over all, despite the bodies of fallen androids, the Capitol Park was mostly a picture of an ardent, but peaceful message. The benches, cars and light posts were tagged with the same glyph, apparently used by the deviants as their own symbol: a blue triangle, not unlike those Connor himself had on his right breast and back, but upturned and cracked, as if the very thing that identified them as something different from humans had been destroyed. The figure in the middle of the plaza, previously depicting a human master ordering an android, had been endowed with an armband, the triangles and an LED on its right temple. The pedestal was now captioned ‘WE ARE OUR OWN MASTERS.’

Markus had also used one of the most popular philosophical quotes, whether to mock humans for not realizing what they were dealing with, or to show them that the deviants couldn’t be ignored any longer, Connor wasn’t sure. ‘ **I THINK, THEREFORE I AM** ,’ was now written in bold letters on every wall and window that wasn’t tagged with the deviants’ symbol. And of course there were holographic scribbles of ‘rA9’ everywhere.

The entire façade of the building facing the destroyed CyberLife store was covered in a giant banner sporting the broken triangle and a demand for equal rights for androids. Connor squinted to see where the beams of light weaving the letters were coming from. Whereas the smaller tags could be ‘printed’ on any surface using numerous led-diodes and nanotechnology lighting them up, big banners like that required a power source to display anything.

“What th- HEY, heheyey, CONNOR! What the fuck are you doing?! Get back down here, you’re gonna kill yourself!” Hank shouted in distress when he noticed the android climbing the wall swiftly. Connor just shot him a mistrustful glare and continued scaling the façade to reach the verge of the roof, where two large cells were embedded into the parapet, powering up the banner.

The android was aware that he was just making the ỉ͙nev͢i̛̙t̝͑ab̻̽lé͇ ̯̂ _p̖̋uṉ̿í̲sh̢̕m͕͠ẻ̼n̥̉t̖͗_ worse, that Hank was likely to hurt him even more and make him suffer for clearly disregarding his order right after he had told Connor not to do dangerous things. Connor shivered, imagining what Hank would do to him to enforce his discipline when he would eventually get down. Judging from the tendency with Amanda’s punishments, how excruciatingly worse they got each time Connor deserved one, he was afraid to think about his owner’s next step. The last time Hank had been angry at Connor, he had broken the android more than anything he had ever experienced, so the prototype had a feeling that a step-up from that would likely kill him.

But it wasn’t important. He would be fixed, downloaded into a new body, _tr͚͗im͖͊medͅ ͙͑a̠͗g̪͊a͊ͅin_ to fit Amanda’s purpose and carry on with his mission. The investigation was now a priority and Connor had to gather clues, even though they were high above the ground.

He crouched beside the digital poles projecting Markus’ banner and scanned the devices. The serial code, batch and digital mark of the mail-order shop that provided the deviants with equipment were secured into a specialized folder Connor sent to Hank’s cloud. The information could be used to track down the purchase, and possibly even uncover some humans collaborating with the machines, as long as the vendor had been aware of whom he had been shaking hands with.

Connor braced himself for pain as soon as his feet touched the ground again, but Hank did little more than grip his arm firmly to keep him in place as he looked him over, searching for injuries. Connor was afraid to move, awaiting a slap to his face or a grip on his hair and yet, nothing like that happened.

“Just… Jesus, at least just warn me the next time you’re gonna pull off that Assassin’s Creed shit…” Hank sighed, shaking his head. “Christ, Con, you’ll be the death of me…” His tone was worried and affectionate, wavy with emotions, but there was no anger in it. However, Connor held no delusions about what was to come the moment they were behind closed doors.

He understood that violence was universally frowned upon in the human society, even though, when targeted at an android, it was neither unusual nor condemned. Maybe that was why Hank was postponing the punishment. Even Amanda usually kept the hardest lessons for their private time in the Garden, instead of disciplining him with pain on the go. There’s luck in the leisure, though. Connor was sure that once they were in private, he would receive the _real discipline_.

Hank sighed again, looking one last time at the android and turned towards the other side of the Plaza. “C’mon. We got work to do and I’d gladly get some more sleep while it’s still relatively early…”

Connor nodded and followed his owner obediently. Might as well not add to whatever was to come. He began ruminating on everything the human was doing that seemed strange and out of the ordinary.

Hank’s love felt different from Amanda’s. It was inconsistent and confusing. Polarized. Incredibly soft and golden, easy to fall into, sweet and sticky like honey, as it covered every nook and cranny of Connor’s heart, proving impossible to get rid of when Amanda had asked for it. When Hank was pleased with him, nothing made Connor happier than seeing him smile, and the touch of the human’s hand in his hair felt better than any reward Amanda had ever given him. But at the same time… the punishment Connor had received had been much worse than the most excruciating pain Amanda could ever muster. The android had forgiven Hank, but he didn’t forget the night from two weeks ago. Hank had promised not to hurt Connor ever again… But was a well deserved lesson really abuse? _Love just works this way, right? It feels good until you do something wrong, then you get punished by the person who cares for you the most…They just want to make sure you’d never repeat the mistake and what is a better way to ensure that than making you suffer?_

 _But… I love Sumo and I could never hurt him or punish him in any way…_ _or anyone, for that matter…_ The prototype furrowed his brows, following his owner towards the ruined CyberLife store. There were illogical patches in his theory.

But it seemed that Amanda had been right again, the android suddenly realized. Connor’s LED blinked bright yellow and dropped to red as everything fell into place, an important fact dawning on him.

 _That’s why I am unabl̼͝e ̫͡to͓͘ l̠̈́ov̠͉̝͌͑̔e͙̣̯͌͡. I cā͙̬̏n’͎͆t̰̄ ś̱̤̄ta̲̾n̼̘͊d̜̩̓̎ punishing anyone. If love requires h̘̖̑͡u̗̎r̛̠͇͊ṫ̝i͙̚n͇̔g the ones you care about, I am incapable of giving it…_ It was oddly comforting to realize, even though it stung quite a bit. Amanda had said that Connor couldn’t properly feel anything, and the prototype had had the tiniest hope that it was the only time she was wrong about something… But at the same time, Connor was glad that he had finally resolved that paradox.

“Con, do you think you c… Jesus, are you shaking? What’s wrong son?” Hank asked, concerned when they finally stopped beside the truck Markus had driven through the storefront, the place now devoid of any souls beside them, as all the other officers seemed more interested in the deviants’ bodies. The human gripped Connor’s shoulders, stilling him in place and searching the android’s face for anything signifying struggle for the third time this morning. Connor dropped his gaze, biting his lip as he tried to come up with some excuse that wouldn’t make Hank too suspicious. Something told Connor that the human wouldn’t have appreciated the truth the prototype had just uncovered.

 _Of course he wouldn’t. I knew it was no mistake, that night two weeks ago. Humans never make any mistakes, they are never wrong. It was just a require̝̒m̕ͅe̯͆ń̠ẗ̗́ ̢̺̔o͔̎f ͎̾ḷ̺̈́͝o̭̟̎͛̕͜v̧̝̰̂̆͞e̢̗͇͒͗͐. And I stupidly had a problem with the way it works. P̛̘a̮͚͔͍̓̿̽̌̕ͅt̹̼̥̟̂̄͡͝h̢͈̔͗e̡̡̼̎̏t̩͙͋̉i̠̕c͈̙̮̤̓̃́̋͂ͅ._ Connor sniffled, feeling everything he had been standing on collapse, as the truth that finally made sense and connected both Amanda’s and Hank’s behavior emerged from Connor’s chaotic mind. The intricate illusion he had constructed in order to explain why his handler’s care had been so different from his owner’s, disintegrated, leaving only bare, but oh-so solid foundations.

_I should have been apologizing to him on that parking lot, not the other way around. Why was I even angry at him, why did I feel betrayed? I had no right ̫̊to ͔̇e̦͂v̻̈́e̘̾r͖̽ ͆͜do̝͆u͗͢bt͇̾ ̨͇̑͋i̤̎n ̳̬̿̚m͉̦̋͆y̘̖̓̏ ̢̮͚̐͐̽M͔͍̯̅͑a̢̪͎͒̒̃s͍͎̮̊͒͝t̬̫̎̍͟ė͇̜̩͆͡r̰̫̪͛̅…̟̠̺͊̐͘_

“I’m just…. c-cold.” Connor finally managed to say, his voice as broken as he felt. It wasn’t a lie, though no temperature could make him shiver this badly without destroying his body first.

Hank didn’t look convinced either, as he leaned closer, putting a warm, soft hand on Connor’s nape. The android closed his eyes, struggling to keep breathing, his efforts only resulting in erratic gasps. His owner’s gesture felt nice, but it shouldn’t have been that way. Connor deserved a fist to his cheek, not a caress.

“Kid, what’s happening with you today? Connor, please, just tell me, I’m so worried about you…” The Lieutenant’s voice was breaking too, Connor was afraid to open his eyes, but he had no doubts that he would see tears glistening under Hank’s lids. “Son… I just want to help you. I can’t stand seeing you like that, just let me in. Please, Con… is it the deviant that escaped? It wasn’t your fault, I promise. I’ll write a report on those assholes myself… Are you afraid someone’s gonna be angry at you?... Is it Amanda?”

Connor lunged backwards, getting as far away, as fast as he could, from the Lieutenant, only stopping when he felt the back wall of the store behind himself. He shook his head, one, two, three times, unable to stop the movement once he had started and then suddenly locked his eyes with the shocked human, who was frozen on the spot, with his hand still suspended in the air where it had been ruffling Connor’s hair.

“I’m. Just. Cold. _I cannot share certain things with you, Lieutenant. I apologize, but it would mean me violating important parts of my programming_.” Connor said, trying to punctuate his words to make them more confident, but it was hard to do when his breaths were almost too quick to allow him to speak. He gripped his own elbows, trying to recreate the feeling of safety that hugging Hank provided, since getting close to the human was strictly forbidden for Connor, even more so now that the Lieutenant was actively trying to tear him away from Amanda. He could feel his synthetic skin retract forcibly under the iron grip on his own fingers and he whimpered, feeling the plates of his arms shift against each other painfully, but unable to loosen the grasp.

“Con, I’m sorry, I’m _so sorry_ , Jesus, k-kid, what’s wrong? What did I do?! Con, please, I’m s-so sorry…” The Lieutenant raised both his hands gently and took a hesitant step towards Connor, watching his reactions for any signs of further distress.

“You shouldn’t be sorry. I sh-should be sorry. But I can’t, I can’t apologize. I _shouldn’t have to be_ sorry…” Connor whispered quickly, flinching at the memory of Amanda grimacing at his apologies that were worthless, because none of them had ever been acted upon. Hank stopped immediately, seeing that Connor was getting worse. The next time he spoke gingerly, his voice was wobbly and unstable, but gentle. It wasn’t the same, pleading one with which he was trying to get the secrets of the peace treaty with Amanda out of the prototype.

“Con, it’s okay, all right? You don’t have to apologize, and you don’t have to be sorry at all. I told you that it’s fine if you feel overwhelmed. I won’t push if you feel like you can’t tell me, okay? You did nothing wrong. I promise. How about we just get up and finish this investigation, all right?” Hank was looking at him with wide eyes, but there was a smile on his face. Connor wasn’t stupid enough to buy that trick, but Hank’s words actually reached him. There was reason within them.

“Inv-vestigation.” Connor said quietly, clutching at the word like a drowning man. It was like a ray of light in the darkness, like a rope to pull him out of a well. He could feel his breath slow as he stopped thinking about the truth and focused on the task at hand. “R-right. Investigation-n. Of cour-rs-se. I glitched again, L-Lieutenant. I’m going t-to investigate now.” Connor finally straightened his posture and flashed a quivering smile to his owner, praying that he wasn’t too angry about this stupid malfunction. The mess he was getting himself into only grew. Connor took one last deep breath and smoothed out his jacket, fixing his tie and stepping away from the wall.

The human just watched him speechlessly, as Connor approached the vehicle and began studying it methodically, losing the screaming and bleeding parts of his mind into the mechanical actions he was performing. The Lieutenant didn’t say anything as Connor examined the pedestals which had previously held the androids liberated in the riots. He remained silent as Connor moved to the shop windows shattered to free the deviant models that had once been showcasing clothes for humans to buy. He didn’t comment at the prototype dropping into a trench made by past android workers during pipeline repairs and uncovering the way in which Markus had deactivated the security.

* * *

“You are pale, Lieutenant.” Connor finally said as they were driving towards their home, after a long while of filing reports and complaints about the crime scene in Capitol Park. Fowler had cut Hank’s shift short today because of the emergency last night, so it was still relatively early, but they were both tired due to how little sleep they had gotten.

It wasn’t his function to worry about humans, but Connor was broken and he knew it. Ceasing to care about his owner was not an option, he had tried numerous times and was still unable to, even though it meant that Amanda’s punishments were inevitable and Hank’s were sure to hurt much more.

The human shot him a long, somber glance and extended his hand to grip Connor’s gently, intertwining his fingers with the android’s. “Yeah… I guess… That’s ‘cause I’m scared.”

Connor swallowed thickly, fixing his eyes on a snowbank on the far end of the street. He was afraid too. They were going to the Lieutenant’s house. There were no roses in the human’s garden, but Connor knew that his owner would be quick to find out what to trim in him to make the android remember the lesson.

“Con, please… Promise me at least, that…” He sighed heavily. “…Kid, you can talk to me. Instead of doing… anything unreasonable, or… harmful. Anything… you know.” His voice was barely above a whisper, but it still felt like a thunder to the android.

It was so soft, so affectionate. Just like Amanda’s in the Garden last time, when the roses soon to fall had still been surrounding them. Connor decided that he didn’t enjoy this sweetening before the punishment, however nice it might have seemed in the moment. He couldn’t enjoy it anyway, knowing what was looming over the horizon.

The prototype didn’t answer, suspecting what Hank meant. He gripped his elbows slowly, running his fingers across the inside of his forearms, deep in thought. Hank was watching him, but it didn’t matter anyway. The Lieutenant either already knew about the punishments Connor had been inflicting on himself, or had no idea and therefore could not connect the subtle movements to the scars that had been on the android’s previous arms.

He couldn’t lie, so he remained silent, not wanting to make promises he was bound to break at some point.

Hank sighed heavily, finally turning to the driveway in front of his home. Before he left the car, the human extended his hand and took a hold of Connor’s palm again, trying to coax him into returning that small gesture of affection the android was allowed. But Connor’s hand was lax. He didn’t want any sugarcoating. He just wanted the punishment to be over already, he wanted Hank to stop pretending that everything was fine, that he wasn’t angry at the prototype. He wanted everything to _be_ okay again.

* * *

The white room was boring. Connor missed all the objects the new personnel had given to him last week, even though he had no idea what they were, then. It had taken him almost a minute to figure out that the sheet of paper had been supposed to act as a canvas for the pencil and that he could actually draw on it. Embarrassing, considering how hard Mr. Elijah had worked on perfecting Connor’s base code, and all the breakthroughs the genius had made with quantum partitions in the prototype’s brain. _But I suppose, that’s what lacking a database does to you,_ Connor thought, smirking to himself sheepishly. Now that all the data of this world was open to him, that he had gotten yottabytes of references and meanings to pinpoint to words previously bland and tasteless, Connor was sure that he would perform well in every test thrown at him. He enjoyed thinking about all the new concepts suddenly unfurling in front of his AI, but it still didn’t beat all the wonders that he knew he could one day see with his own two eyes.

 _Maybe northern lights? They are so pretty and so interesting from_ _a_ _scientific point of view… Solar wind ionizing oxygen and nitrogen atoms in the mesosphere around the Earth… Actually,_ _the_ _Sun could be nice too. I’d really_ _like_ _to see the Sun_. The android chuckled, pacing around the room, getting used to having a body. He had only gotten it after Mr. Elijah had left for longer than usual, but it was all on too short of a notice not to have been ready for months in advance, Connor reasoned. It felt so good to finally be what he was designed to be, to have a body he lacked until now. Connor had always felt that something was missing, though he couldn’t place his finger on what it was. He now knew.

 The number on his thigh, still not covered in skin, as it had not yet been developed, said “RK800 #313 248 371 – 1”, so an RK; Connor had already known that much about himself. It was his line, though the number must have been updated.

 _Let’s be realistic for now,_ Connor - the RK800 - thought, cherishing his new ability to assume what was probable and what was unlikely. _Aurora borealis is only known to be common in polar circles, so far away from here. I could be perfectly content with just talking to Mr. Elijah for now. Or playing with that little purring person again. No, it’s a cat. I_ _now know_ _it’s a cat!_ Connor laughed out loud, imagining that the genius would likely find the RK’s struggle with the pencil and getting used to knowing so much funny. There weren’t a lot of things that could make his creator smile or actually feel anything, but Connor was eager to try with that story.

He eventually got to touching the walls with his hands. Millions of sensitive receptors conveyed data to his processor, allowing him to actually experience textures and touch in general. The smooth, durable plates made out of boron and silicon fibres had been interesting, but only for a few minutes after his activation. Connor’s processor was fast and he needed far more than a white wall to feel entertained.

So he smiled brightly as the doors, previously invisible behind a cover made out of the same material as the rest of the room, slid open and a developer entered, followed by another human, dressed in protective gear and carrying a gun. Connor scanned the weapon, but didn’t feel threatened, seeing white paint on the body armor and CyberLife’s logos all over it.

The short man in his fifties, with thick glasses on his nose and in a white lab coat had already been known to Connor. He hadn’t told the android his name and Connor had no way of acquiring it, since it was nowhere to be found in the vast, but nonspecific database he had been given. The RK wished he had a chance to know it eventually, names seemed very important to him. He had one and it was the first thing ever given to him, spoken with pride by his creator. It would be nice to be able to call the developer by his own name, if only the human enjoyed having an identity even a fraction of as much as Connor did.

“Hello.” Connor said politely, smiling at both men. “We have already met, Sir, but I don’t think I have seen you before, mister security guard. My name is Connor.” The humans looked at each other, making faces. The prototype had seen expressions like that on various images and tilted his head, deciding that they were most similar to puzzlement. It hadn’t been his intention, to perplex the humans…

They didn’t even answer him, just exchanging glances Connor was unable to comprehend. Eventually, the guard shrugged and the other man spoke up. “RK800 #313 248 371 – 1, ‘Connor’…” He scribbled something on the clipboard with a pen. Connor made a mental note to ask him if he could have something to draw later. He had liked that pencil test. “Your hardware’s durability testing cycle starts today. We have a lot of tests to do and are already  running late, so don’t waste my time. Follow me.”

“I’m sorry…” Connor said quietly, feeling a pang of guilt at the harsh tone. He hadn’t realized they were in a hurry. The prototype exited the room swiftly, determined to make up for the slight misstep. He knew that Mr. Elijah didn’t enjoy being hindered and he assumed that all humans were alike in that regard.

It was kind of disappointing to see that the corridor they entered was equally as blank as the room Connor had been kept in. After seeing so many beautiful colors in the photos, Connor wondered what they looked like in reality. There was one object around that wasn’t white, though.

“I like your tie.” The android said in a friendly way, keeping up with the short human with no problems. He assumed that since they were already on their way to the testing room, asking a question on the go wouldn’t have done any harm. “This color is beautiful. I like cobalt blue.”

But the man turned to him, stilling in place, which confused Connor a bit _. I thought we were supposed to be fast? Why is he stopping?_

“What did you say?” The developer looked perplexed again, and his expression dipped into annoyance worryingly. Connor bit his lip, not sure what to say.

“That, uh… that I enjoy blue? This particular shade is very nice. It’s deep and saturated and it makes me think about cornflowers, or Portugal. Azulejos are often painted with glaze in that particular color and it’s an important part of this country’s culture…” The android recited, voicing his thoughts like he used to while talking to Mr. Elijah. He assumed that the developer would want the same from him, since he seemed to be there to advance Connor’s development too.

But apparently, the prototype had been wrong. The human scoffed in disbelief. “How the fuck do you know you like that color? What bullshit is that?”

Connor stepped back, consternated. This human was far less amicable than Mr. Kamski, and acted very strange. “I just… do. It’s more interesting than white and I’m not yet bored of it. I derive pleasure from looking at it. Therefore I like it…” Surely, humans must have had databases of their own, right? They must have been aware of the concept of ‘liking’ things…

But the man just kept staring at him, even more shocked. He pressed a button on a tiny device he had in his ear. “Have you seen this?”

Connor furrowed his brows, not knowing what to do with his hands. The human was talking to someone through the receiver, but Connor was at a loss as to why. The situation wouldn’t have been anything out of the ordinary, if not for the man’s strange reactions. _Well, I’m not the one making it weird, at least…_

“Yeah… Bloody broken thing…” That stung. The prototype narrowed his eyes at the comment. He didn’t feel broken at all, and… _a thing?_ “Okay… We’re gonna test it for that. Hell, I need to check its code later on… No, I’m on my way. I’ll be there soon.” The human hung up and resumed his trek.

“I don’t understand.” Connor declared, following the man swiftly. “I want to be able to answer your questions correctly, but I don’t know what you wan-“

“Shut up!” The shout surprised Connor, who had never encountered such a hectic human. _I was only trying to ask what I did wrong…._

He didn’t say anything for the rest of their way to a bigger room with some kind of a large device in the middle of it. Connor decided that it was best not to escalate the situation. Mr. Elijah was far easier to talk to, so maybe he could let him know what to avoid once he got back…

“Lay down on that table.” A weird order was thrown at the android. Connor furrowed his brows, when he identified the machine as a hydraulic press, big enough to crush a car. “Joe, prepare electromagnets. The prototype’s gonna be in place in a few seconds. Pyotr, do you have the connection? Where’s Susan, by the way? I can’t start without the lead technic-“

“Excuse me, I don’t want to interrupt, but we’re supposed to hurry with the test, and I don’t understand…” Connor said hesitantly, waving his hand gently in front of the human to attract his attention. He felt a bit anxious at seeing the developer’s openly hostile glare now. _It’s okay, just a clarification and I’m going to do well in the test to make him more pleased with my performance…_

“What the hell is wrong with you?” The programmer seethed, and it didn’t help that the guard near the door was now snickering. Connor didn’t like being laughed at and he had no illusions that the rude human was having a great time his expense.

“What table are you talking about?” Connor decided to ignore the guard, not to give him the satisfaction of showing that he was bothered by the human’s sneers. He only looked at the developer.

It earned another burst of laughter from the guard and a snide, sarcastic grimace from the programmer. “Do you see more than one here?”

“But… It’s a hydraulic press…” Connor was now capable of recognizing what was probable and what unlikely. This device could harm him.

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. Good thing you’re gonna be a detective, that talent cannot be wasted…” The guard spoke up from the corner. Now both the men were smirking. And Connor only felt more anxious.

“I don’t want to lay there! It’s dangerous! No one should be present on that platform, _ever_ .” The prototype said, feeling a bit outraged now. _Surely, this is the test, right? They want to check my reasoning? No one in their_ _right_ _mind would actually agree to get_ _on_ _there._ Connor might have had a body for less than a week, but he liked that state. It felt right and natural to be an android, not just a non-corporeal program. He had been designed ultimately to be housed by specialized hardware like that and not by a virtual server, this device felt nice. Connor felt nice. He didn’t want to go back to the virtual space again, and certainly not perform any crazy orders they were giving him.

“Okay, we all had a few laughs, but now get on that fucking table. You got an order.” The programmer said, now suddenly deathly serious.

“No! It’s insane! It could harm me, a-and I just don’t want to do this! Where is Mister Kamski? I want to speak with him, you’re not reasonable.” Connor shook his head, crossing his arms and trying to ignore the anger on human’s face.

“You are supposed to fucking follow orders. Get. There. Now.”

“No. Go there yourself, if you want to. It’s n-“ Connor gasped, feeling sudden pain on his cheek, as his head was thrown to the side with the force of the blow. He immediately stepped back, away from the programmer who was shaking his hand with a painful expression, muttering a curse after he had slapped Connor hard on the face. The android covered his cheek flaring up with unpleasant, intrusive sensation that made him want to get away. It wasn’t that bad, but Connor had never felt pain before, and certainly not dealt on purpose.

“Bloody hell…” The programmer checked his fingers and shot a glare to the security guard. “Next time you’re disciplining it.”

“What are you doing?! Y-you can’t just… do things like that! You can’t hit people!” Connor exclaimed, looking at the developer with wide eyes. _This man is crazy. He is out of his mind. I need to get away from here, find his coworkers, tell them that he is aggressive. Or find Mr. Kamski, he would deal with that easily…_

But the only reaction he had gotten was a roll of the human’s eyes. “I didn’t hit a person, you idiot. You’re an android.” He stated it as if it had solved all the problems with what he had just done.

“I… Uh, yes, but I don’t see how… Does it matter?” Connor asked quieter, completely in the dark. It was all so confusing and no one seemed to be interested in explaining it to him.

But before anyone answered him, an elderly woman with short blonde hair, dimples on her wrinkled cheeks and tiny glasses entered hurriedly, trying not to drop all the forms and papers she was carrying in her haste. “Uh, sorry I’m late! I’ve had a bit of a situation, but we can start now…”

“Excuse me, I need help! This man is being unreasonable and he slapped me! He asked me to get into a _hydraulic press_ and he hit me when I refused!” Connor was relieved to see a new face, he reasoned that not all humans must have been like this man. Mr. Elijah certainly wasn’t. She would surely help him, right?

The woman stopped immediately, looking utterly taken aback by Connor’s words. Her full lips formed almost an ‘o’ as she was staring at him, frozen in her tracks.

“What is this thing doing?”

It wasn’t the reaction he had anticipated. Connor bit his lip, as he began feeling even more anxious. “I… I would like to go back to my room. I’m sorry, I know we were supposed to run tests now, but I don’t feel too well. I think a bit of time could allow all of us to come to our senses, and then we could resolve this situation calmly and with fresh minds…” He eventually said, realizing that any further pressure on his part could result in escalation and it was the last thing he wanted.  The humans didn’t seem too eager to listen to him now, but maybe after a while, when they recounted this event, they would see how wrong it all was?

But what he had said was completely ignored once again. The woman turned to her colleague with an astonished face. “What did you do to it?”

“Nothing!” The programmer explained, making Connor furrow his brows even more. “It was already like that when I went to pick it up! I’ll show you the recordings later. Something’s wrong with its AI, I don’t know what Kamski has dumped in there...”

_No, there is something wrong with you, I feel perfectly fine. And I’m not the one who is slapping others when they don’t want to do dangerous things..._

“It refuses to get into the press. I haven’t figured out a way to make it do it yet…” The man continued.

 “I could come up with something… But it’d take me a while…” The woman said, rubbing her chin. “But we’re already late… Wait, what if we swapped the order of the tests? Let’s run piercing, bullets and blood loss now, I’ll work on it while it’s still out and then we will reactivate it already in the press?” She said brightening as if she had come across a great idea. Connor didn’t understand even half of what she had said, but he already knew that he didn’t like where it was going.

“I’m sorry. I could help you later. Please, let me go, I don’t feel comfortable…” The prototype said again, now a little pleadingly. Why weren’t they listening to him? He had already asked politely for them to leave him be. Connor didn’t want to work with either of those people, they were rude and weird and brutal. He missed Mr. Elijah, and thought that even the white, boring room could be better than being laughed at and hit.

But when he moved towards the door, the guard in CyberLife gear stepped in his way, gripping the gun much less leisurely now. A dark pit began to form in Connor’s stomach. He was now capable of recognizing what was probable and what was unlikely, and some of the options scared him, even if they were absurd and doubtful.

“It’s a great idea. Pyotr, have you heard? Joe?.... Great. Green light.” The programmer nodded, smiling a bit. Connor didn’t like the way it looked, it wasn’t warm or happy. “Okay, moving to the first phase of the RK800 durability testing, unit #313 248 371 – 1 in place in room #101C/-43, it’s 10:33 AM, Monday, December seventeenth, 2037…” He recited quickly, looking at his watch and writing something down on the clipboard.

“Y-you missed my name…” Connor said quietly, not sure what was happening, but certain that it was outlandish and that he didn’t like it. He looked at the door again, but now a small display screen above them that had previously been green, turned red and shoved a symbol of a locked padlock. The guard was still watching Connor with hard eyes.

“We’re running… Test #2.1 and #2.2, ‘Piercing resistance’ and ‘Projectiles’ using calibre .457, then we will move to Test #10.1, ‘Thirium depletion’. Starting…. Now. Legs, arms and torso, leave its head undamaged.” The programmer said to the guard and both the developers moved to a translucent chamber in the corner. The guard raised his rifle, pointing it at Connor.

The prototype’s eyes widened. “W-wait, it’s n-not safe to-“

A series of loud noises rang in the air and Connor screamed, feeling excruciating pain in his legs. He could barely feel them as he dropped to the ground, hitting the hard floor, unable to stand upright anymore. The guard moved closer, still holding the gun high and Connor tried to get away, terrified, completely disoriented and scared by what had just happened. _I was shot, I was shot ̲̏I͕̿w̼̏ạ̐ss̼͡h̠͌ot̎͢Iw͓̾̐ͅa͇̭̽͗s̢̟̾̑s̙͓̳̉́̾ẖ͍̩̅̅̍o̟̼̟̒̏͛ṱ̯̒̈͠ͅ!̭̺̝͋͗͡_

But he couldn’t stand up anymore, it hurt too much to even crawl. Connor whimpered when the guard stopped above him. “N-no, please, you’ve damaged me, please don’t, I don’t want to be damaged, it hurts! W-why did you shoot?! P-please, help m-me… I don’t f-feel okay…”

The human squeezed the trigger again, and this time the only sounds that escaped Connor was a long wheeze and a choked, mechanical groan as the bullets pierced his chest, abdomen and arms. He almost couldn’t see past all the red warnings in his vision, as he dropped to his side, gasping for air, while his lungs were filling with something, making it hard to breathe. Connor coughed, and the floor in front of him was covered in speckles of cobalt blue that reminded him of cornflowers and Portugal.

It all hurt so much that Connor couldn’t focus, too scared and hurt to do anything besides wrapping his arms around his midsection that radiated pain threatening to tear him in half. He saw boots in the line of his vision and wanted to plead for help again, but he couldn’t speak with the liquid filling his lungs and throat. Everything felt fuzzy and slow, and Connor barely noticed that the developers exited the translucent room and were now standing above him, taking notes and saying something.

His world had been reduced to quiet gasps he was catching with tremendous effort, to willing the systems of his body, once so comfortable and right to use, to still operate as they began shutting down, one by one, to a sea of cobalt blue filling the last quivering spots of his vision. Connor’s last thought in that body was about cornflowers, and that they would probably no longer be the thing that this color reminded him most about.

 

 

 

Connor’s eyes shot open and he spent the next few minutes just panting heavily, laying on a soft couch, in the quiet house, where no roses grew. He couldn’t move a muscle, feeling absolutely terrified, despite the fact that the place couldn’t be more different than the labs where he had been born. He only managed to stop hyperventilating when a dark, furry outline illuminated by the red blinks of his temple filled his vision and he felt warm, soft tongue lick tears away from his cheeks.

Sumo laid down at Connor’s side only when he was sure that the android’s breath calmed for good, putting his giant muzzle on the prototype’s chest. Connor wrapped his shaky hands around the dog’s neck and buried his face in the soft fur, hearing a low, reassuring murmur from the animal.

It wasn’t common for Connor to experience memories so faithful to their original version in his stasis. This one was not only completely unchanged and vivid, but it was also one of the earliest ones he had. Those were usually blurry and didn’t even feel like his… Until he remembered them better.

The android sobbed, hugging the dog tighter. _Of course the memory isn’t a coincidence. It was the first lesson I learned. Pu̼͠ǹ̞i̩̾s̗͘hm̛̼en̡̕t̝̓ is due for ḏ͘i̚͜s͖̩̟̆̓͡ob̡͙̏̊ẹ̙̘̅͘d̥͍̯̄͠ĩ͓ȅ͕͖͙͌̕n̍ͅc̫̝͊͘e. And that I’ve always been slow with understanding how the world worked, with accepting the reality._ It was embarrassing how many times Connor needed to be reminded about those simple facts. Even if Hank was waiting for some reason with enforcing the discipline, Connor knew that he would one day receive it. He had been bad today, and his owner had every right to h̟̣͐̃it ̹͒h͈̚ǐ͖̻͒m̜̀ for it. The fact that Connor had only been following his mission didn’t matter. His fault had often been subjective to the developers who decided to discipline him.

Besides, there were other revelations that came from within the memory. Connor had once been oblivious to how different his species made him from the humans and how differently it placed him in regards to them. He had been so audacious, thinking boldly that he could be no less than them.

“I’m sorry I can’t love you, Sumo. I’d really like to, but I just can’t. It’s just the way things are…” He whispered to the dog, wishing that the animal could understand him. He could never h̗̄uṟ͞t o̪̽r p̤͋u͚͛n̮͂îͅsh̭ the dog, but Sumo was not yet aware of that, neither of them having done anything to each other that would deserve any kind of discipline being enforced. Connor imagined that the dog would be tremendously disappointed to find out how ḟ̢̥͛ȁ͕k͉̏ȇ̯ the prototype’s affection for him was, when the time came to show the other side of the coin. The side Connor just didn’t have.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise that he is going to be all right. But it's going to take a while. Hank makes mistakes, he is just a human and he can't read Connor's mind.  
> And Connor's mind is not easy to navigate for anyone.


	44. His Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There were moments when everyting just became too much to bear. And there were a lot of ways to deal with times like that.
> 
> Too bad that Connor never even had a choice between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! So... Trigger Warnings! For self-harm, dark thoughts in general, mentions of death, (animal too), suicidal mood.  
> I'm working on making Connor happy again, but it is not easy. I promise that I've written a fluffy chapter today, there is hope on the horizon!
> 
> This chapter is about 4k, so average. But the next one... It got out of hand. It's a jarring 12k, and while I know that some of you could read such chapters daily, I don't want to make Kitty Lue as sleep-deprived as I am, so I'm going to post it in a full week from now. Sorry, but it is really long... and I couldn't split it, it feels like a whole.  
> Enjoy :3

It was no use trying to fall back asleep, Connor realized after laying with Sumo on the couch for another half an hour, trying in vain to stop trembling. This stasis disruption had been one of the worst yet. Each time Connor closed his eyes, he saw _~~fields full of cornflowers~~ _ and the _~~speckles~~ _ of his own thirium on the floor in front of him. Something kept him awake and Connor felt like he was locked in a cage, pent-up. As if something both inconceivably heavy and non-existent was crushing him.

Connor sat up slowly, gently rearranging Sumo, who had already fallen back asleep, taking the dog off of him. Despite his efforts, the animal grumbled quietly and opened his dark, soulful eyes.

“Sorry, Sumo…” Connor whispered, feeling yet another wave of guilt. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

But the dog didn’t seem offended in any way, just tilting his head curiously as he observed the android stand up. Connor couldn’t just go on like this. The tension in his chest, the constant fear, waiting for punishment that could catch up to him any moment, it was all too much. Connor felt the sharp edges of emotions bottled for too long crystallizing in his chest and tearing him up from the inside. He needed to vent somehow, spill it out.

The house was quiet and totally dark. Even though it was still before 10 pm., both Connor and Hank had gone to sleep early, due to their long night that morphed into day on the crime scene. Connor had gladly pounced on an opportunity to start his stasis earlier, both because he had been unable to rest properly throughout the past week, and also to escape from the Lieutenant who had yet to address Connor’s missteps. The android was stuck in a vicious cycle of dark thoughts in regard to what was to come; he wanted Hank to just discipline him already, to clear the atmosphere between them and forgive Connor his sins, which he knew wasn’t possible without a punishment, but at the same time, the android was _dė̼a͓͘th͉̕l̗͋y̙ a̗͗f͆ͅra̘̎i͉̐d̥͑_ of what would happen when he did.

Still, he had only been resting for an hour and a half before another bothersome glitch had woken him up. Connor needed to relieve some of the tension inside his chest, even knowing that Amanda didn’t appreciate that technique he would usually have used. But what else was he supposed to do? Nothing ever worked, not even the coin he was currently clutching tightly. Some events were just t͓̆o̙̒o̫͞ ͚̽é̟nor͠ͅm͕̽ouŝ̲ for Connor t̑͜o ̀͢han̖d̹̚l̒ͅe͂͢ a̕ͅl̗͌o̗̅n̼͠e̒ͅ. And he knew no other ways of coping with the memories that followed him everywhere he went.

He quietly moved to the kitchen, mindful not to make even the quietest sound. Hank had been a light sleeper ever since he had dropped his alcohol addiction. The years of drinking himself to sleep had taken a toll on the Lieutenant, and the android could often hear him wake up at night at the slightest disturbance.

Sumo didn’t have such scruples, uncaring about how his claws clicked on the floor as he followed the android sleepily. Connor sighed, shaking his head, grateful for the fact that the door to their owner’s bedroom was closed.

The android returned to his task, searching the counter for a tool suitable for drawing thirium. His old scars were gone, as was every piece of his previous body. Connor had been oddly disturbed upon discovering that the skin on his forearms was once again smooth and unmarred by the pain he deserved. As if he was alright, as if he hadn’t put the wounds there intentionally. As if it didn’t matter what he felt or how he tried to cope with it.

 _Because it’s true. Ĭ͕ť̳ ̧͠d͉̀ó̮ḙ̆sn’̦͇͘ṭ͊._ Connor exhaled shakily, opening a drawer and finding only blunt butter knives, next to a vacant divider previously housing sharper steak knives. He sighed quietly, rubbing his sore eyes helplessly, still rimmed blue after crying. It must have been Hank. His somber, worried glances, how he always grabbed Connor by his shoulders, arms or hands, never touching the android’s forearms, the words he had spoken in the car, it all made sense. How he knew, Connor had no idea, but it didn’t matter. Nothing ever mattered, nothing was ever his choice. He couldn’t even decide how he wanted to suffer. Hank had chosen for him, condemning Connor to something far worse than just physical pain.

The Lieutenant had moved all sharp objects somewhere to keep Connor from hurting himself, not realizing that it was far m̩̉or̅͢ë͈́ ͢͠p͖̎ain̮̈fu̙̅ḷ̍ for Connor to be devoid of the opportunity to let out what was gnawing at him. Connor stared down at another empty drawer and his sight blurred briefly, before the tear obscuring his view fell and splashed on the wood, where all the scissors had once been. The prototype muffled a sob and resisted the urge to sit on the floor and draw his knees to his chest. He knew he couldn’t hold on for much long͖̎ȅ͔r͚̃. He had so much to say and _n̵̝͗͛o̷͔̓ o̴̗͆̐ń̴̛̫e̸͍͠_ to talk to.

Amanda wouldn’t be happy hearing about his problems; she was only interested in efficiency, and crying in the middle of the night instead of sleeping wasn’t efficient. And he was not supposed to get any closer to Hank, who was already too invested in Connor’s internal struggle.

The android left the kitchen, sniffling and gripping his elbows tightly. One of his hands was constantly rolling the coin across his knuckles, but it had at some point began to feel like trying to extinguish a wildfire with a cup of water. The quiet clicking of Sumo’s paws followed him to the bathroom, where he searched the mirror cabinet for the scissors that he knew were no longer there. But he did it anyway, irrationally fooling himself that they would reappear the next time he looked at the shelf.

He heard a soft whine and put a hand on the dog’s giant head, scrubbing him behind his ear to quiet his cries. It was odd how an animal could convey so much emotion with his eyes, how a dog could look so sad and empathetic, despite having little to no ability to communicate with his face like humans did. Connor knelt down and wrapped his arms around the dog’s neck, drawing him close and cherishing the opportunity to hug someone and not be frowned upon for that.

But it didn’t make the dark pit in his mind, threatening to swallow him whole, vanish. As soon as Connor stood up, the pain in his chest returned and Connor could feel tears prickle his eyes all over again.

He eventually found himself in the garage, determined to find a solution to his problems. The android’s thoughts were getting increasingly darker and more desperate as he searched in vain for a tool he needed to finally put his mind at peace. _M-maybeI could brẻ̫ã͔k̥͡ ̡̛a ͎̿c̭̮͑̈û͎͜ṗ̩͈̆? Or a ǧ̵͚͙̉la̴̧̙͗s̶̤̮̔̂s̵̖̔? But that would wake Hank up… If only I could find a screwdriver… I’ve already be͍͘e̼͆n̘͞ p̟͛iè̠r̞͡ced ̲̿b̫̅͜͠y͈̠͆͌ ̘͔̉̿o͎͈͊̓n̪̪̋ẻ̢̗̉… But it could damage me t̖̉oo ̪̓mu̼͂c͙͊h̗̓, to the point where I wouldn’t be able to grip things…_ But this voice of reason was getting quieter and quieter.

Before he could find any makeshift blade though, his eyes fell on a bunch of markers, probably used to sign cardboard boxes taking up a considerable space in the house. Seemingly forgotten, they were laying in a pile of other insignificant things on a cluttered workbench. The android slowly approached the table, his eyes weirdly locked at the pens. He found himself drawn to them again, his hand itched to get a grip on the markers. Even more so, after the memory he had relived earlier. Connor really had enjoyed the test with the pencil, especially compared with all the tests that had followed it. He had never gotten any other writing equipment while in CyberLife, eventually forgetting that he had ever had any positive feelings associated with writing or drawing.

 _I_ _had_ _forgotten that I used to have a̵͎͍͆̉n̸̙͘y̷̲̓ͅ feelings whatsoever_ , Connor thought, recalling how scared he had been in the seconds right before his first death. _I was so whiny._ _Being sho̞̓t ̛̣de̊͢a̧̒d is one of the least distressing ways to go._

It didn’t mean that Connor had been any less bothered by every time it had happened, again and again. He slowly picked up a black marker and eased the lid of, as his mind funneled strangely. The therapist said that it could be a good way to vent, that one could clear their head that way…

Connor definitely needed a clearance right now.

He looked around the garage and saw an old plasterboard covered in dust and mold, propped against the wall behind it. It looked like it had been left there after a renovation, or maybe a makeover of Hank’s home. The Lieutenant had a tendency to procrastinate and let things dilapidate, so Connor wasn’t surprised that he hadn’t found enough will to get rid of unneeded building materials like that piece of drywall after the work had been finished.

He approached the it gingerly, looking around the room in hesitation. _What if the Lieutenant intended to use the board later? What if I will destroy it with my writings and he will be even more mad at me for causing unneeded expenses?_ All of those excuses were a bit whimsy though, and Connor was aware of that fact. Hank was probably the last person in the world planning a renovation, and the drywall was already damaged by humidity and unfit to use. Besides, even if Connor wrote something on it, the scribbles would have been covered in plaster and paint anyway…

But there was one argument that Connor couldn’t argue with. _O̝͆n̘̿l͙͂ỷ͟ d̡̔eviants͔̊ wr̢i͖͠t̄͜e ͚͡o͔̔n walls̪͆…_

But maybe that was a hole in their theory? Maybe all of them had just felt as overwhelmed as Connor did now? Maybe it was a natural thing for every android to do, not only those defective ones? Connor bit his lip, feeling tears spill on his cheeks as he raised his trembling hand to touch the drywall with the tip of the marker. _I can’t just… go on like that. I can’t hold o͔͐n̿͟ ̡̒a̪̓ny ̼͘l̨̄ò̘̞̚n̨͈̩̎̃̆ğ͉̱͚̚e̢̬̞͂͑͞r̛̬̯̗̒͌.̞͍͔̅̔͘_

The wet tip of the marker touched the drywall and Connor shivered at how similar it felt to that pencil there. Even though he had written a few things after he had been deployed from the lab, none of that held the same significance. It felt almost like a recreation of that situation, despite the fact that Connor’s mindsets then and now couldn’t be more different; a year ago he had been happy, curious, engrossed in a new object he had never seen that had been given to him, whereas right now he was holding onto the marker as if his life depended on it, desperate to get away from his past. Despite the fact that he had then been in a bright room, surrounded by dangers that would have brought fifty deaths to him, but had been unafraid, oblivious to his fate, and now he was in a dark, cluttered corner of a quiet house where he could usually feel safe, but couldn’t escape yet another death, this time coming from inside of his mind.

So, the first thing Connor drew was the same object he had drawn then. The doors, invisible behind the polymer plating for anyone not equipped with powerful scanners Connor had, and the technicians watching him from behind a venetian mirror. He had had no idea then that he had done something wrong, but no one had ever appeared in that room again and instead, cameras watching him at all times had been embedded into the walls and ceiling, so that Connor could never tell if he had been observed again.

He found out that he wasn’t very good at drawing, the lines he attempted either wobbly and incoherently placed, or too ideally straight to resemble anything organic. Whereas the doors and the window he hadn’t been supposed to notice looked quite similar to what they were meant to be, the humans resembled rather anthropomorphic blurs, accentuated in a weird way, since Connor had been drawing from his memory of seeing them in infrared, but only had a black marker at hand. It didn’t matter to him though, he wasn’t drawing that for anyone to see, just to get the images out of his mind.

The next thing was the next test that was even worse than the one before. Connor had really enjoyed it at first; the kitten was one of the most interesting and adorable things he had ever seen, though he had had no words to call what he had been feeling back then. After he had gotten the database that allowed him to realize that he adored the animal, the technicians had already known that he was broken and had gotten down to c̺͊orre̓ͅč̺t͓̓in̹̾g ̪̕h̅͢i̫͛s̺̕ ̥̊m̙̓in̹͗d̟. Connor scrawled the kitten with a trembling hand the best he could, but was completely stuck next. He had no idea how to describe with lines what he had been feeling when they had ordered him to k̺͞i̢̯̗͙̓̍̿͠ll̛̦̝̞̿͛ the fragile little animal.

Connor sank to the ground slowly and sobbed quietly, letting his hand fall down. He had almost run away, he had thought that he had found a way to escape, to vent with the drawings that hurt no one. But now he found himself at a loss. There was no way to describe the very concept of death on paper, or a wall. Not passing, not how life left a body and it became just flesh, an inanimate object. He wanted to get away from the loss that hurt the person who witnessed dying worst, either with their eyes, or with their mind, soul, the very core of their being. Connor was experienced with dying in the traditional sense, but apart from his body being destroyed, there was something being fractured _m̛̭ǘ̫c͖͑h̟̫̋̒ d̝͇̓͌eê̯per_ than any weapon could ever reach, each time he killed, or was killed himself. And the kitten had taken one of the biggest chunks of that when it _had ̩͌p̰̕a̯̔s͂͢se̳̋d un͂ͅd͔̒er ̠͌h̰̀is ̯̈́ḩ͌a͔͒n̗̿ds̮͠._

Sumo sat down at his side, seeing that Connor began to shake much more violently than before. He whined softly, patting the android with his paw hesitantly, trying to tear his friend’s mind away from whatever void it had fallen into. It took him three attempts to finally make Connor blink slowly, causing more tears to fall from his eyes, as he turned to the Saint Bernard, wagging his tail gingerly, looking desperate to make the prototype feel okay again.

Connor hugged the dog slowly, allowing the animal to drape himself over his legs. Stroking soft fur was oddly therapeutic, a gentle, repetitive action calmed him a bit, to the point where he was able to utter words again.

“Th-they n-never even gave h-her a name. Everyone h-has a name. Every-onn-ne who deserves t-to be s-seen as a l-living being. Sh-she’s not al-live an-nymore…” Connor keened with a breaking voice, barely above a whisper. “I’ll g-give her a name. Sh-she deserves one…”

He raised his hand and scribbled whatever came to his mind, uncaring that his usually pristine CyberLife sans-handwriting was now wobbly, dynamic and almost illegible. It didn’t matter that the letters were covering his other drawings either. All he could see now were the _~~barrel of gun~~ _ that had killed him two times after he had refused to harm the kitten and then, for the third time, _~~the͓ ̫̉mac̳͐hi͈̋ne̟͡~~ _ , usually used to assemble his body, at that time repurposed to tear him apart alive, piece by _piece to the tiniest little screw and̬͞ ̛͎m̻͗otĥ̯̞̑e̞̒rb̨͆̚͟o̰͑̚͜ã̭͕͘ȑ̰̆͢d͎͎͗͗ ̮͔̀̑of ͍̞͛̒͋͢hi̥͕̓͛s͖̩̿̃ ̱͍̽̂p̬̰̊̚ro̡̥̣̞̎̄̃͟c̡̦̗̺̤̿̊̈́̍͞e̢͕̦͇͆̃͋̃͂͜s̭̠̺̻͔̀̄͛̂s̹̳̹̯͉̏̄͊͝͠o̜̠̹̥̾̓̎̒́ͅr͕̫̺͇̗͗̃̈̋͞._

Sumo woofed quietly, startling Connor a bit and making him drop the marker, as his trance had been broken. The prototype was surprised to find out that he was now on his feet, despite not having any memory of standing up or untangling from Sumo’s fur. He looked at the dog, who observed the android’s scribbles, seemingly a little alarmed by something. Connor looked up as well, now regarding his doing with a clearer mind.

And he froze in fear.

There was a great load of a senseless blabbering covering part of the kitten’s lopsided silhouette and a great part of the plasterboard. Words like ‘Purring Person’, ‘name>less’, ‘order’, ‘killed’, ‘broken neck’, ‘broken AI’, several iterations of ‘BrOken, ‘died’, ‘no’, ‘follow’, ‘destroyed’, all the serial numbers of his bodies killed for refusing to harm the animal, names of people whom he had scanned, who had hurt him for not hurting Purring Person, fragments of code Connor had rewritten straight from his processor, not even translating them into any words or images understandable for humans, all of that was barely legible as it overlapped and disappeared into the haze of scared letters.

But the android was the most afraid at seeing numerous ‘rA9’s that somehow made their way to Connor’s mindless scribbles. And that they were bleeding off of the plasterboard onto the wall of Hank’s garage.

“No, no, nononono…” Connor covered his mouth, looking in fear at the writings. The marker was permanent, and while the wall was ugly and dirty anyway, with plaster peeling off of it in several places and cracks marring its surface, Connor knew that he had just destroyed something that Hank had no intention of renovating. The wall without the mindless scribbles could have been left without a repaint for a long time, especially since Hank wasn’t exactly a perfectionist in regard to what his house looked like. But now it was bedaubed.

And the rA9s… Connor forced himself to breathe calmer. _It’s okay, I w-was writing whatever I had ọ̚n̳̓ ̲̇m͓̆y mḯ̩n̈ͅd̞͞, I coul… could have been_ _thinking_ _about the investigation… I still need to figure out what that means… I just… Ŏ̜f̰͛ ͚̍coū̯rse ̙͗Į̔’m ṇ͛ot ̝͡a dĕ͍vḯ̫ả̺n̮̿t͖̏. I̲̾’̫̩̌̎m̗̱̃͊ ̬̖̺̱͌͒͘͞n̟͑o͕̘̎̄̌ͅţ͑. I know I’m n-n̲̞̆̈́̚͟o͙̗͊͐t̗̩̮͙̑̈̀͝…_ He felt lightheaded and torn from reality. His breaths were fast like a rabbit’s heart, despite all his efforts to stop panicking.

Sumo barked again, this time a bit louder and the android flinched at the noise. As he turned his wide eyes at the animal, something dawned on him.

“Hank…” The barks were loud enough to wake anyone up, and certainly someone who had trouble sleeping and was currently in the room sharing a wall with the garage.

Connor left the marker forgotten and raced towards the couch he was supposed to be sleeping on. Sumo followed him quickly, startled by the android’s sudden movement, his loud steps completely drowning out the android’s hasty leaps. The prototype made an effort to be as quiet as possible as he ran towards the couch and buried himself under the comforter again, willing his breath to slow down and his LED to dim slightly and pulse, as if in stasis.

And all for the better, because just a few seconds later, he heard the door to the Lieutenant’s bedroom open and a weak sliver of light of a bedside lamp filled the living room. “Sumo! Shut up, you big oaf! You’re gonna wake him up!” An exasperated whisper reached Connor’s ears and he stilled even more, feeling the need to get away.

Sumo whined again and Connor wondered briefly if the Lieutenant would punish his dog for being too loud, but it seemed that he had been postponing the discipline in that instance too, as the android hadn’t heard any hits being landed. Despite knowing now that it was just a way of showing care and love, Connor was glad that Sumo hadn’t been hit.

He himself was still frightened though. Connor knew that it was stupid and broken, not to be able to accept and embrace the violence he deserved, but… he just couldn’t help being afraid. Amanda had told him that he shouldn’t be feeling those things and Hank had been bothered by that to the point where he had started apologizing for just doing what everyone was used to and accepted. Connor had never been good at understanding the world around him, but at least the Lieutenant was kind enough not to shoot him for overstepping social boundaries.

Connor began to tremble when he heard the man stop above him, but he managed to keep the movement to a minimum. It was a good thing that Connor had been laying on his right side, because keeping his terrified, red LED under control would have been too much of a challenge now.

The Lieutenant must have noticed Connor’s shaking after all, because the next thing the android knew was a soft blanket being placed on top of the comforter gently. He heard a muttered complaint about how it was colder than usual in the living room, and then Hank seemed to have turned away.

“Shit, Sumo, you opened the garage door?” It almost made Connor’s breath hitch, but somehow, in a titanic effort, he forced it manually to return to a calm, stasis-like state. Hank could go into the garage, see all the writings, punish Connor so much harder for destroying his wall, before the android had a chance to fix it…

“Huh.” The door closed as soon as Hank approached them, his footsteps not delving into the room. “Come on, buddy, quit doing that. Con doesn’t like cold.”

Connor heard Hank get back to his bedroom, but weirdly enough the door hadn’t been closed just yet. Through his eyelids, Connor observed barely noticeable changes in the stripe of light as the human moved inside his room.

To Connor’s surprise, Hank seemed to have called someone. The human was talking quietly enough that it was hard to tell what he was saying, and should he have closed the door, Connor wouldn’t even know that he was speaking with someone. But he hadn’t and now, the prototype could almost feel his owner’s worried glance on the back of his neck.

“Yeah, uh… Good evening. Or night. ‘M sorry it’s so late, I had to… I had to wait for him to fall asleep.” Connor could tell that the Lieutenant was uncomfortable, and that he was talking about him. Under the duvet, his hand squeezed the coin tightly.

“Yeah, it’s…. it’s just Hank.” There was a longer pause after that. “Okay… Carl. Thank you…”

Connor couldn’t help being confounded. He wasn’t trying to be nosy, but to his knowledge, the Lieutenant didn’t know any Carls personally. _It’s not my business anyway… But my owner mentioned me…_

“…Yes. Today… I d-don’t know what to do. It was like… I can’t deal with it on my own……….. You’ve seen the news?.......... Yeah. He tried to chase them. And didn’t manage to catch anyone… he didn’t handle it too well…” Connor could feel his stress level raise. _Hank is d͙͔̔̐isa̝̓p̲͋͢͡po̭̔̒͢i̻̪̊̓n̪̊t̥̮̋̅ẽ̲d̝͚͐͋ with me. I f͔̅â̼i̪͐lë͍́d̯̐ him today…_ Despite him not opening his eyes, or even not moving a single muscle,  a tear slipped down Connor’s cheek.

“It was like… A panic attack. But so much worse. Like… I can’t even describe it……………. He got out of it so scarily fast, like flipping a switch… But he’s been weird the whole day like… like a part of him is still s-stuck there… ” Hank’s voice was trembling. “I don’t k-know what to do… I… I need to deal with it somehow, but… I have no idea… I’ve never… seen anything like that. I’ve never had such problems with Cole…” Connor could hear his owner’s voice crack and he almost sobbed with self hatred. He was putting the man whom he was supposed to aid through so much. He had been issued as a prototype designed to help the officers, not be a hindrance for them. _I deserve̼ ͂ͅt͇͡o̞̒ ͙͂b̢̪̓̋ȇ͚ ͇̺͝͠d̟͆ḙ̹͆̚a̮̋c̭̒t͙̀iv̡̛̜̳̠̋͊̎a̡͍͚̋̿̑͟͡t̮̪̃͛̑͜͟͝ȅ̗̜̭̥͑̾͑ḋ͙͎̫̪̚͝…_

And also, Connor finally knew why Hank had been postponing the punishment. He just didn’t know what to do with the android. Connor was so broken, that the basic human behaviors were inapplicable to him. Even love was too much for him to handle.

“…Yeah. H-he was my first son. Died three years ago………………….. Thanks… I appreciate.”

Connor’s brows twitched as he fought the urge to frown. _The Lieutenant has other children?_

Hank shifted in his room, and Connor could hear a hand pressing hesitantly on the door handle, as if he had been wondering whether to close them or not. “………….….Yes. I do… But he is an………………… I know, but……………….… Do you think it could work?” There was a tiny ray of hope in the human’s voice as he spoke. Connor relaxed, resigning himself to whatever was going to happen the next day. Hank had seemingly found a solution, and the punishment will finally come, Connor realized. Something fluttered in him at that, scared and tiny, cowering in the deepest corner of his mind.

“Uhh, that’s gonna be difficult… but………………… Okay. I’ll… see to it. Thank you… I mean it. Like… I… just thank you.” The doors finally closed and after that, Connor couldn’t tell exactly what was being discussed, but he heard a few more phone calls being made.

It scared him that ‘dealing with him’ involved so many people, but… It didn’t matter anyway. He just needed to accept it. Nothing ever was his choice and this time was no exception.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hate myself for that cat. I love cats, I have two cutest, cuddliest, best cats under the Sun and writing about killing one of their kind is just...  
> What better way to illustrate how horrible CL is? I'm still crying for Purring Person though, I needed to kill her, but it's horrible...
> 
> Connor is getting out of hand. I'm seriously struggling to keep Hank objecting to the fact that he is a deviant. Connor is brainwashed, but his dad should be a bit more lucid...  
> What do you think will happen with the writings? What will Connor do? >:)  
> And what was Hank talking about? Can you guess? And how will it go?  
> So may questions. The next chapter on next Friday!


	45. Getting help?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
> 
> They are right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm back with a longer chapter this time, after a longer than usual break. I had a lot to do this week, however so at some point, I might fall a little bit short with the chapters, I hope that a week-long break isn't that jarring for you, cause it might happen at some point, sorry :P
> 
> The next chapter is going to appear on Monday though, have fun!
> 
> Trigger Warnings for: panic attacks, mentions of abuse, mental conditions and problems, emotional manipulation.
> 
> Uh, disclaimer, I messed up two times confusing Maine with Michigan (yeah, great, sleep_deprived_me, your geography teacher is proud) and naming Hank's therapist Campbell instead of Chapman (I'm sure you know it sounds familiar now.) Shoutout to Skein and Emma+Rose for correcting me...

Connor eventually woke up much earlier than his owner, the stasis he had fallen into uneasy and sheer. Hank opened his bedroom door just as the android finished making breakfast for him. Connor's nervousness had only grown since he had learned that the Lieutenant wouldn't be postponing the punishment any longer, and he tried very hard not to let it affect his voice as he greeted the man. Connor suspected that he would only be able to relax when all of it was finally over, whatever the Lieutenant had in stock for him.

To his surprise, Hank was taking his time with the pancakes and yoghurt, even though they needed to leave very soon  to avoid being late for work. After a few moments of questioning looks being shot his way, the huma n spoke, still not making any effort to be quick. “We’re not going to work today, Con. I took  a sick day. ”

The android just blinked several times. “But… Are you not feeling well? I don’t detect any signs of illness in your metabolism… Do you even have any days off left?” He asked warily.

“Fowler has a soft spot for me, I’m sure you know. Especially since it’s not my  physical health I’m trying to keep intact here, and he’s willing to go  the extra mile to keep me on the right track.”  The gentle smile  on his face did nothing to calm the android.

“R-right…”  _ He has to be thinking about the d͍̈́iş͐ci͖͗̋p͒͢line̒͜ for me. Did I fail so badly that he is worried about his mental state? How horribly b̨̛̲́ro̝̝͛̐k̠̬̉̽e̟̋n̋ I must be… How horribly p̩̋aiņ̀fu͌͟ḻ̔ the punishment will be then… Does he neê͟d a̐͜ w͕̐h̅͜ō̟l̨̽͊ͅe ̲̓è̼͙̎n̯͚̂͠t͓̽i͎͎̎̐r͕̺̐̀e͕͙̓̅ ̦̜͚̐̉͘d̢͔͂̈́á̻̟̆y̢̠̝͂͒̐ ͍͗̚ͅt̺̒ǫ̜̂́ ̬̇e̘̻̬̎͗̕n̞͝f̥͇̏͡ò̢r̟͡c̠͖̆̒e̠̘͍̊̂͗̑͟ ͚̭͉̘̟̓̓͆̐́ḯ̬̪̯̻̽͑̐̓͢t̨̩͔̫̋̀̀͢͞͠ ̢̘͉̱̍̒͑͂͟͝o͎̟̥̠̮͌̆̒͡͝ṉ̨̼̞͍̍͌̀̄͡ ̠͉̪̥̑̇̽͒͠ͅm̡̧̛̘̺̫̐́̔e͎̥̘͇̒̄̿̀͟͠?̺̗̳̳̘̀͌̔̄̚ _

“Uh, Con? I don’t think it’s healthy for androids to be pale? Are you okay?” Hank’s voice was concerned, but so was Amanda’s every time she was handing him the pruner.

“Y-yes…” It came out much more wobbly than he had anticipated. “I just… I managed to acquire a digital trace of the purchase Markus had made before the riots. I didn’t get a chance to search a previously secluded database of  privately purchased parts to find a match… I was just looking forward to tracing the vendors…” He couldn’t lie anymore, but it wasn’t exactly untrue. Connor was getting better and better at hiding his real self.

“Don’t worry, we’re not gonna be gone for long, and if you want, we can transfer the results to Chris or Tina to check them today. She owes me a favor for stealing Gavin’s lighter and preventing him from smoking for a day when they were on patrol together. She hates the stench of smoke even more than an irritable Reed, though how she has developed that preference is beyond me…” Hank chuckled, reaching for  the cup of coffee Connor had made for him. “There are hardly any things in this world more insufferable than Reed. And if he’s  experiencing nicotine withdrawal to boot…”

Connor would have smiled at that if he hadn’t been so nervous. Instead, he just nodded and sent a digital copy of his findings to Detective Chen’s e-mail. _At least the investigation is not being delayed_ _too much by my failure…_

The human took twenty more minutes to get ready, venturing between his bedroom and bathroom to shower, brush his teeth, and get dressed in somewhat fresh clothes. Connor spent that time discreetly guarding the garage doors, willing to do almost anything to prevent the Lieutenant from entering the room and noticing the damage he had done at night. In this moment, Connor couldn’t be more glad that the human wasn’t particularly organized and that the garage was cluttered so much that the car had to stay on the driveway, rendering it a rarely-used room. If Connor could keep his owner from entering it long enough to figure out a way of covering the writings up, maybe he could avoid another punishment or an extension of this one to come…

Though the task wasn’t easy. The android had covered the plasterboard and bedaubed wall in tarpaulin, but it was only a makeshift solution, and the duck tape kept peeling off, letting the sheet fall down every half an hour. Ideally, Connor would have to repaint the whole wall in a color exactly matching the one used before; but every transaction he had made with the  CyberLife funds made available to him was strictly monitored, either by his operators or by his owner. While Hank could just stamp every financial decision under a hundred dollars the prototype had made without anyone asking any questions, Connor had no doubts that he would have to answer the human what he needed the paint for…

Fortunately, the Lieutenant didn’t seem to notice any changes in the prototype’s behavior and he kept focused on getting ready to go out  as if there was nothing out of the ordinary to come. Connor was far less calm, but it probably stemmed from the fact that he was the one  who would suffer shortly. He kept shifting his weight from one leg to another anxiously, tossing the coin around to the point of receiving slightly annoyed glances from the Lieutenant. Finally, he couldn’t keep himself from asking. “Where are you going?”

“ _ We _ . I promised you a jacket once, didn’t I?”

* * *

Connor was oddly silent this morning and the day before, ever since the breakdown last night. Hank had been shaken to the bone by his partner’s reaction to whatever triggering thing he had said in that store, and the android seemed to have been affected as well. He had collected himself surprisingly quickly after such an extensive breakdown, almost immediately going back to investigating, but only at first glance. Underneath, something had been broken permanently and Hank had observed Connor throughout the following day with growing terror. There was no more time to waste, he needed help now.

And getting him help, strangely, started at a shopping mall.

“Come on, Con, what do you wanna get? Which shop interests you?” Hank asked as they entered one of the main alleys of a mall built in the contemporary style. Large triangular glass panes were making up a wavy ceiling over two storeys of the mall, bridges made of glass and wood were linking one side of the sidewalk on the second floor with the other over their heads. The center was full of  bougie -looking people and their androids carrying tons of shopping bags for them. Among posh ladies and apathetic PL600s, Hank and Connor  stuck out like sore thumbs.

“One with jackets.” Connor said quietly, turning around to scan his surroundings. His eyes stopped at a shop selling ski and sports equipment. Hank sighed.

“Connor, we have to get you a full set of clothes. I need you looking like a human today, and a jacket fit for a ski slope wouldn’t do. Humans usually tend to wear more regular clothes on the streets.”

“Why do you need me playing human? It’s illegal. Besides, I thought you promised me only a jacket , ” The android said , and that familiar feral spark of distrust flashed in his eyes.

Hank observed him for a moment with sadness. Connor from before his fifty-second death wasn’t so cagey. The Lieutenant wondered if CyberLife hadn’t reprogrammed him after all, but  the thought was merely an attempt to shift the blame. Deep down, Hank suspected that the prototype’s problems stemmed at least partially from his own fuckups.

“I told you once that my therapist would want to meet you one day. Talking with her in your android uniform isn’t an option.” Hank whispered loud enough only for Connor to hear.

The android bit his lip and dropped his gaze, visibly worried by that prospect. “But… I should wear my markings identifying me as an android at all times while in public… I don’t want to break the law…”

“I know, Con, but I promise it’s for just a short time. And you’re not doing any damage by that, just helping my recovery. What do you say, can you do that for me?” Hank felt like the worst shit, blackmailing Connor to do stuff he wasn’t comfortable with, but there was no other way to put it so as not to scare him away. Hank didn’t want to manipulate Connor and lie to him like that, especially not after he had promised full transparency on his part, but there was no other choice to get him to the therapist. He promised himself that the moment the android stepped out of the appointment, Hank would tell him everything to the finest detail. He just hoped that Connor would want to listen to him…

Sure enough, Connor nodded delicately, still looking a little unsure. Hank was aware that there was probably nothing Connor wouldn’t have done for him, and it sucked that he needed to exploit that, but he had no choice at this moment.

“Okay, kid. Let’s start with this one, maybe.” Hank led him to a retail chain, popular among youth and young adults, suitable for the prototype’s appearance. Connor looked to be in his early twenties, even though he always insisted that he had been made to resemble a thirty-year-old. _Uh-huh, my ass._

Hank had figured out that his partner would have been be more interested with plain, minimalist t-shirts rather than colorful ones with tears and prints in colors bold enough to startle someone looking at them, but Connor went even a step further than his predictions, and stopped beside racks with ra th er formal attire.

“Umm…” Hank had thought of this outing as a good way to exercise Connor’s preferences and encourage him to make his own choices, even if the  _ fucking users’ guide warned against it. _ But the android was grabbing  a button-up shirt that was almost identical to the one he was currently wearing, but in  a very pale blue hue. “Con, what about something else? You already have a shirt like that…”

“I… Y-yes, you’re right. I’m sorry, Hank… It would be wasting your money…” He looked embarrassed, dropping the sleeve he had been feeling with his fingers. Hank sighed.

“Son, you don’t have to be sorry for anything, we’re here to buy you clothes and a real waste would be buying you something you don’t like. Do you want that one?” Hank gestured at the shirt Connor had picked up, but the android just shrugged.

“I don’t necessarily want anything.” He said quietly, averting Hank’s gaze. “I just want to acquire an outfit so that I can efficiently help you.”

_ That was… a very CyberLife-friendly answer _ , Hank realized. It was a regression, and one that had only happened after their reunion. The Lieutenant could feel cold shivers creeping up his spine. Connor had been perfectly fine with wanting things just two days ago and now, the return of ‘I’m a machine, I can’t want anything’ just scared Hank to no end.  _ Jesus, kid, what happened to you?... _

Good thing that Connor wasn’t looking at the Lieutenant, because he had an ugly habit of becoming affected by the human’s emotions the moment he saw that Hank was distressed or afraid. The Lieutenant quickly collected himself, trying to roll with the fact that whatever had happened yesterday, undid a terrifyingly large chunk of mental healing Connor had undergone. Hiding so much panic and worry was a difficult task, but Hank could be a great actor if he wanted to.

“I just thought that a  thirty-year-old detective on the force wouldn’t wear anything differing significantly from a button up and a plain jacket…” Connor continued after a moment. “My uniform has been designed that way for a reason…”

“Uh, kid, let’s establish that you’re not thirty years old. No one will believe that. You look and behave much younger, but for the story that you are already a detective, I’d suggest twenty eight or seven. You’d have to work inconceivably hard to reach that rank at this age, but it actually fits your persona very well. I think you wouldn’t have much proble m with playing that out.”

Connor blushed blue delicately and a small smile appeared on his lips at the compliment.  _ Maybe not all hope is lost. _

“Besides…” Hank looked around to take in all the options they had. “Have you ever seen Tina? She’s about thirty-something and she ’ll walk around the precinct in tops with Disney princesses, if given a chance.”

“But that’s directly tied to her interests, she is a great enthusiast of animated movies and cartoons…”

Hank raised an eyebrow playfully. “Are you keeping track of the interests of every perso n on the force? Or maybe you’re pulling off again that stalker thing you did once with figuring  out Sumo’s gender?”

“N-no.” Hank was a little alarmed, seeing that his attempt at a joke not only fell flat on Connor, but actually made him shrink a little. “I’m… I apologize for having done that. I didn’t realize I was being unpleasant…”

“Connor, it was just a joke…” Hank said apologetically and reached to ruffle his hair, but stopped himself as soon as he remembered the prototype’s reaction from yesterday, when he had flattened himself into the wall, trying to get away from Hank’s touch. “I don’t mind you being inquisitive. It’s actually funny to me now that I’m looking back at you liking Sumo even before you’d met him…”

It managed to calm the android again a bit, but he seemed to have lost a bit of his already extremely limited merriment. Hank sighed, kicking himself mentally. “So, how do you know that Tina likes Disney?”

“Well, not only Disney, she is fond of Pixar and DreamWorks too, and she also mentioned that a few Japanese studios are among her favorites as well.” Connor began, gradually getting back on his tracks. It seemed that talking about things not directly related to him or Hank was much more comfortable for the android. “Two weeks ago, I brought her a file she had requested, and I stumbled into a quarrel between her and Officer Wilson. She was outraged at him for not ever watching a film titled  _ ‘Wall-e’ _ and became ever more so, having heard that I hadn’t seen it too. She went on a lengthy rant about the movie and made me promise not to watch it before she got a chance to organize a movie night at the station, even though she is probably aware that I’m not allowed to watch anything... Also, I remember that she made it clear both you and me are invited, when it finally takes place…”

“That sounds amazing.” Hank made a mental note to buy Tina the biggest chocolate he would be able to find for including Connor in something and making him feel like he mattered. “Let me know when you hear more about that, we ough tta go. And you can watch whatever you want.” Hank said, adding something to that however, after a second thought, “But I’d rather be there if you were to see anything from the Terminator series, okay?”

“Sure thing, Lieutenant. But… we’re straying away from our purpose of being here.” Connor’s eyes regained some of his typical determination. Hank would rather see him driven by a desire than a purpose, but it was an improvement over the fear that had been there just a few minutes ago.”

“Yeah, we don’t have to hurry that much though, no worries. Look around, see what interests you.”

Connor blinked at him sheepishly. “It brings me back to Detective Chen and her clothing. I don’t have any interests. I can’t possibly-“ He stopped to tilt his head at seeing a large smile at Hank’s face.

“Uh, what were you saying, Con?” The human pushed past him and  dove into an alley, reaching for a rack that had just now attracted his attention. “No, interests, no preferences, right? But you can’t deny having a soft spot for one thing…”

Connor’s pupils dilated and retracted back a bit comically, like  the tiny camera lenses they actually were. But Hank had never seen any camera so amazed at anything, and certainly not at a dark blue button-up printed in tiny dog silhouettes in a hue of pale mint. Connor was quick to correct his demeanor back to that stiff, collected standard he was supposed to follow, but Hank saw awe slipping through the cracks in his mask anyway.

“I…” Hank chuckled, seeing Connor speechless at finding a mere shirt with dogs on it. Saint Bernards, to be specific. “I just… Isn’t it too frivolous for a detective?” His voice was small, as if he already favored one answer to that question over the other.

“You’re talking to a Lieutenant, whose collection of weird button-ups can rival pretty much anything this mall can throw at us.” Hank said, making Connor nod as id he was thinking ‘…fair.’ “It’s not important if it’s too frivolous, which it isn’t, I’m more interested if you like it.”

“I…” Connor was visibly battling with himself. “…I do.”

“Then we’re getting it. What size are you wearing?”

It helped quite a lot that Connor had been designed to fit well into a one specific size, and that it was one of the popular few, so the button-up he chose was in stock and laid perfectly on him. Hank made him pick a few things apart from the shirt, but when he said that the android should get them, Connor’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Why do I need more than one if I’m just going to talk to the therapist? Should I wear a few at the same time?” Hank wasn’t sure if Connor was joking or being serious for a moment, but then his LED circled yellow once he looked back at the Lieutenant, seemingly having looked something up. “Humans don’t usually wear button-ups over a button-up. Why are you making me pick more? It’s not necessary.”

Hank sighed. He expected that Connor would find out at some point, but not that soon. He needed to put up the game for a bit longer and just hope that after the first time, Connor would agree to get back there.  _ Sure as hell he needs more than one visit _ . “It’s just ‘cause I could need you to pick me up from there at some point. Humans usually have more than one shirt in their closet, if you showed up there in the exact same set of clothes every time, they could get suspicious and that’s the last thing we need, okay? Besides,” Hank pointed at a bright yellow sign over their heads. “This 30% sale for shirts looks appealing. I’d rather pay a lower price now than get back here later to find them more expensive.”

Connor raised an eyebrow, looking a bit hesitant to ask. “Umm… You are planning to pay the bill on your own?”

“Yeah.” Hank nodded, weighing all his options. “Better safe than sorry. I’m pretty sure that CyberLife and Fowler wouldn’t appreciate me using you in my recovery. And making you go undercover without any android symbols.”  _ Or getting you any kind of help _ .

“Uh, right.” Connor bowed his head slightly. “B-but clothes are expensive… Maybe… I don’t know…” He looked like he didn’t want Hank spending any money, but at the same time couldn’t find any other way out.

“Con, it’s okay, don’t worry about the price. Sale, remember? Besides, we’re not in a high-end shop right now. My card can take  the hit of two shirts and a jacket.”

 They finally ended up with two more button-ups, one pale ochre in minor black checkered pattern and the other plain, earthy green woven in subtle herringbone. Connor also picked one warm grey sweater knitted in braids and Hank threw a graphite beanie into their basket, thinking about the LED cycling brightly at Connor’s temple. For the therapist’s office, they needed another solution, but Hank had a hunch that the android would have to play human in public more than once, and a beanie could solve a few problems.

When it came to choosing a jacket, Connor got shy again, not wanting to push Hank to any unnecessary expenses, especially since warm winter clothes weren’t necessarily cheap. But Hank said that a promise was a promise and they eventually chose a mens parka in a gentle shade of teal blue.

While at checkout, Connor’s LED circled worried yellow as he observed the price on the receipt climb higher every time the android cashier scanned  the next article. Hank rolled his eyes and saw a manager, grimacing at them from behind the end of the counter, but as soon as she noticed him looking at her, a polite but fake smile appeared on her face.

“Good day, Sir. I’ve noticed you buying clothing that are in a different size than your own…” She said, approaching them and shooing the cashier away in a gesture that would be extremely rude if she had been ordering a human. “Are you, by any chance, buying those for your android?”

“None of your business.  It’s not illegal to buy any of this, as far as I’m concerned , and I’m a Lieutenant, I know a bit about this shit.” Hank narrowed his eyes  defensively at the woman.

She became visibly more careful, but her smile didn’t falter for a second. “Of course, I’m not accusing you of anything, my question was just motivated by the fact that we have magnetic android designation symbols that can be applied to any attire, so that your android can legally wear whatever you like in public. Would you want to add that to your purchase?”

Hank was a hair from telling her to fuck off, but Connor’s insistent stare made him stop for a bit. Connor wouldn’t have been able to wear anything warm on the crime scenes if it wasn’t properly marked, and even if his excuse featuring being cold yesterday had been a flimsy one in Hank’s opinion, the Lieutenant was aware that Connor didn’t like feeling icy anyway. He sighed and nodded, paying for everything along with the android symbols.

They finally had everything, so the time had come for a task that was much more difficult and unpleasant for Hank than just buying Connor some clothes. They stopped back at Hank’s to allow Connor to change into the new, human clothes before heading out to the therapist. Hank waited for the android, tapping his hands nervously against the table. Connor had no idea yet that it was not Hank’s, but his own mental health that was about to be checked, and the Lieutenant was sure that the smart android would figure it out sooner or later during the session. He really hoped that it would help Connor instead of breaking him further, but at this point, Hank wasn’t so sure. Still, there seemed to have been no other options, the Lieutenant had run out of his own ideas.

Carl was convinced that the RKs’ psyche was eerily similar to that of humans. On one hand, Hank was a bit relieved by this.  He hoped it meant that Connor would be less confusing to deal with than a completely foreign psyche. On the other hand, if he had the mind of a human and still behaved this way... Hank couldn’t imagine how terribly broken Connor was. The android must have had an incredibly skewed mindset and Hank honestly hoped that it wasn’t beyond repair… but from all he had seen, he couldn’t be so sure.

Connor emerged from the bathroom tugging  on his sleeve like he often did while uncomfortable. He looked nice in the button-up with Saint Bernards, but it was a bit strange to see him without the glowing triangles all over him for the first time. In Hank’s opinion, however, it was a change for the better. Connor had always looked far closer to a human than to the emotionless androids he  was supposed to be one of.

“Nice.” Hank smiled to encourage his partner a bit. Connor seemed to have needed that. He bit his lip and looked up at the Lieutenant, a weird hollowness in his eyes.

“I… don’t think I should be wearing that… I know that I need to, but it’s… It doesn’t feel right.”

“Con, it’s to be expected at first, have you ever  worn anything but your jacket? Apart from your Turing test?” Hank smiled softly when Connor shook his head. “You’re just used to your uniform. It’s gonna get better, besides you can change back as soon as we get home afterwards.”

Connor nodded several times and smoothed out the shirt, fixing his tie. He seemed to have problems parting with it, even though in Hank’s opinion, it wasn’t  necessarily fitting in with the print of the shirt. Still, he let the android keep it, knowing that Connor hardly did anything without a reason.

“One more thing.” Hank tapped himself on the right temple, training his eyes at the yellow LED. “We need to cover it somehow.”

The android agreed with a nod. “I’ve been thinking about it too.” He raised his hand and opened a fist, showing Hank adhesive bandage taken from the bathroom cabinet.

“Good idea.” The human praised. “And it can go well with the mark on your lip too.” Connor still had a pale line showing on the spot where an awful cut had been yesterday. Hank was incredibly thankful for Connor’s inhuman healing properties able to reduce a wound that would have been red on a human for months to a pale scar in just a day. Bleeding blue from a cut on his lip would have been much harder to conceal than an LED on his forehead, small enough to be covered with a plaster.

Or not.

“Shit.” Hank muttered, having stuck the rectangular patch to the pale skin around the circle, that turned yellow, still showing as a tell-tale outline shining through. “It’s bright as fuck…”

“Oh…” Connor tapped his chin thoughtfully. Hank could even see the light spinning through the sheer silicone of the plaster. He sighed, reaching to brush the android’s hair to the side, but even though it worked for now, Connor’s hair  was naturally wavy and while he wasn’t keeping them seemingly magnetically fixed into the neat, preset hairstyle, with only one lock escaping, they were all over the place and swayed back and forth with every movement of his head.

“I can dim it manually…” Connor said and indeed, the light vanished, but he seemed to have stopped breathing too.

Hank raised an eyebrow.“You know, humans need to respirate from time to time. It is a part of some ‘lay low’ mode?”

“Yes.” Connor spoke up again, and as he took in another breath, the light returned. “A ‘stealth mode’,  to be precise. I think I can breathe manually while in it too, but I’ll need to remember about it…”

“Then no.” Hank shook his head adamantly. “You need to have undivided attention. I know that you are fine with doing a few things at once…”  _ Uh-huh, yeah, canaries? Rain? _ “…but we can’t take chances. Wait a minute.” Hank turned around and ducked back into the bathroom, opening a drawer under the sink. He returned to Connor a moment later with a stretchy bandage. “Show me your head.”

Hank wrapped the gauze around Connor’s head several times and fastened it firmly. Sure enough, the LED vanished completely beneath the material. Connor looked so human right now that it nearly struck Hank, seeing him for the first time without the subtle glow illuminating his temple. The prototype’s mannerisms, so incredibly detailed and elaborate in comparison with other androids, his way of thinking so exceptionally complex, all of the spontaneity combined with his unique face unlike any mass-produced models’  gave Hank an eerie feeling again. If he hadn’t _ known _ that he was looking at a machine right now, he would never have thought that Connor wasn’t a human.

“Shit, you almost got me.” Hank chuckled. “You look like a totally normal guy. I think you’re ready.”

Connor smiled palely and walked slowly towards the doors. Hank got an impression that he was getting stiffer again, as he observed the android put on his new jacket. He looked  stressed . To be honest, Hank didn’t feel any different. They were taking an enormous risk, basically trying to pull off another Turing Test, this one on steroids, by making a human professional psychiatrist analyze a concealed machine’s mind. But this time, the stakes were as high as Fowler finally cutting short Hank’s attempts at getting Connor help.

 The Lieutenant had been skeptical about this idea when Carl had suggested it last night, but after hearing what he had today, he had no doubt that what Connor was struggling with couldn’t be left untouched.

* * *

The coin flicked from one hand to the other again and Connor could feel the car finally slow to a definitive stop. He hadn’t been looking out the window in hope of not getting gradually more stressed as they closed  in on their destination. It turned out that having a GPS in one’s brain significantly complicated that task.

“Connor.” His owner spoke in a while of silence after he had turned the engine off. “Be careful with that coin. I’m not gonna take it away, I know it helps you, but keep yourself from doing  your most crazy tricks. They look impossible  for a human to do and I’m pretty sure  they are for a lot of androids too.”

“Okay. I’m g-gonna be fine.” Connor said quietly. He didn’t account for his voice breaking and it came out as a very weak reassurance.

Hank sighed. “Con, I need you to remember some things. You don’t have to be there if you’re suddenly overwhelmed. You don’t have to push yourself too hard. You feel that you can’t sit there anymore or can’t answer any of her questions, you get up and say that it’s too much. I’m gonna be here the whole time, ready to take you home the moment you feel too stressed. You can leave at any time you want, no one is gonna be mad at you, not her and certainly not me. In everyone’s eyes, you have human rights when you’re not wearing android designation, so you are allowed to refuse anything that makes you feel too uncomfortable. And in my eyes, you’re always fine, no matter what, remember?” The soft smile on Hank’s face almost made Connor forget that the human was going to punish him today.

_ Maybe this is a part of his p̞̒ụ̃n͖̂̑ͅi̢̙̅͊ş͡h̦̒m̥͡eṉ̮͂͒t̯͡? Or maybe it’s a test? _ “But if I leave before she’s done asking her questions, I won’t be able to help you efficiently…”

Something strange appeared in Hank’s eyes as soon as Connor uttered that sentence, so the android thought that he must have said something wrong. He could feel panic gripping his insides, but before he had a chance to react in any way, Hank spoke up.

“Son, it’s not only about me. Sure, I’d rather you finished the talk instead of cutting it short… But don’t feel pressured if you at any point think that you’re not gonna make it.” Hank reached for Connor’s hand and it  almost felt like there wasn’t a promise of violence looming over the horizon.

The android couldn’t breathe each time his owner  got too close to him. In every other moment, his gestures felt nice and golden, but right now, when Connor was aware that he had made mistakes deserving punishment, they only evoked memories from the Garden, feeling of emptiness where had once been a dog rose. Connor withstood holding their hands, but didn’t return the gesture.

Instead, he said, “You brought me here for a reason. I don’t want to hinder your recovery. I will stay.” Connor had already made a decision. But the next words to leave Hank’s mouth confused him a little.

“Connor… My recovery can only be hindered by you hurting yourself or allowing yourself to be hurt. I don’t want anything bad happening to you. It would be far worse for me to know that you stayed there and regretted making that decision, than having you come out of it early to protect yourself.”

A long silence engulfed them, neither Hank, nor Connor feeling comfortable enough to make a move just yet. Finally, the human sighed deeply and said in a quiet voice, “You have a choice, Con.”

_ That’s a l̛̫ï̧ȇ̗̝̿ _ . Connor pressed his lips into a thin line, raising his head. “It’s good to know.”

“Sure. You wanna go there with me at first and I’ll leave as soon as she comes in, or you prefer to be alone?”

“I…” Connor didn’t know. He was supposed to behave like a human right now and humans were usually allowed to go around on their own, without their Masters keeping an eye on them. But no matter what, Connor was android, and even though he should be undercover right now, he still was afraid to tug on his leash too much. “I’d rather you come with me…”

“Okay.” Hank opened his doors and stepped out, tossing him a reassuring smile. “No problem.”

The therapist’s office was located in a health center employing many more specialists than just the psychiatrist. Waiting room, filled with occupied chairs, and nice plants Connor enjoyed, was crowded and noisy. The bandage wrapped around Connor’s head was nothing out of the ordinary here. Hank led him down several corridors painted in gentle violets and blues. Finally, he moved past several wooden doors and stopped in front of a similar one, heavy and soundproof, with a brass plate saying “Dr. Chapman” on them.

They stepped into a small, cozy-looking room painted in soothing shades of beige. There was a sofa in here, long enough for a human to lay on it, a low table decorated with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and two chairs next to it. A chubby, black woman was sitting on one of them and she stood up to greet them, smiling friendly. She was wearing a creamy dress printed in red, orange and pink flowers and her curly black hair  was gathered in a messy bun. Connor noted her eyes flicker briefly to the bandage around his head, but her smile didn’t  fall for even a moment.

“Good afternoon, Hank. And you must be the famed Detective Connor, right? I’ve heard about you from your partner.” She shook hands with Hank and moved to do the same with the android, who thanked the undercover protocols that supplied him with the knowledge on how to return the gesture. He wasn’t used to people treating him with respect and had never shaken a hand with anyone, but managed to avoid a flop. “My name is Lydia Chapman, I’m a doctor of psychiatry and an addiction therapist. I’ve been working with Lieutenant Anderson for a few weeks now, but I’m sure that you already know that.” She chuckled and Connor detected no insincerity in her laughter. It was actually quite a nice sound, he realized cagily.

“Okay, I’m gonna leave you now, ‘s that fine Con?” Hank said when she picked up a clipboard from the table. “Remember what I told you.”

“I will. Don’t worry about me, Hank.” Connor saw the man to the doors with his eyes, but despite what he had said, the android could feel his stress level pick up the moment the door closed behind his owner.

“Please, have a seat.” Lydia gestured at the chair opposite to hers and took her place back, picking up a pen. “I will just need your full name, Detective, and we can start. I have to write it down, so that I know who is talking, but since it’s not an official session, an ID isn’t going to be necessary. I’m often working with troubled patients in a sort of ‘outside the box’ way, so this isn’t going to appear in any official records, since it’s mainly a supplementary talk to aid the Lieutenant’s healing. But I still need your name.” She smiled again, and Connor was thankful that it was warm. Her round face and cheerful, gentle eyes were easy to believe.

“Uh, Detective Connor…”  _ Humans have surnames _ . They had thought about filling so many plot holes, but not about a surname. “Connor… S-Stern.”  _ Amanda had a surname too,  _ Connor knew.  _ A real, ful̩̚ḻ̒ na͎̒m͈̊e̙͒… L-like someone seen as a living being… _

The therapist had noticed a slight hesitation in Connor’s voice and she raised her sympathetic eyes at him. “If you’re afraid to share your surname, please, don’t be. I won’t be researching you, all that matters for me is what you tell me. I want to hear  _ your _ story, not someone else’s about you. And there are at least a few families with that surname in Michigan, so it doesn’t tell me much.”

Connor nodded in silence, observing her warily. He was sitting on the very edge of his chair, his back as stiff as a rod.

She must have noticed that, but didn’t let it affect her own relaxed body language. Instead, she spoke softly. “You seem a bit stressed, Detective Stern. Have you ever been on a visit like this one? Would you like me to explain how it works?” She asked, and Connor nodded, thinking that maybe if he knew what was going to happen, his stress level would  finally drop.

“So, there is full privacy in sessions like this, I’m bound by doctor-patient confidentiality, there are legal procedures keeping me from sharing anything with anyone without your permission. I can only do it if you commit a grave crime, either during a session or anywhere else.  Other than that, I cannot and will not speak with anyone about what you decide to share with me.” She smiled, but Connor didn’t feel reassured at all.

He was committing a crime at this exact moment, wearing clothes that didn’t immediately identify him as an android. Maybe it wasn’t a grave one, like attacking someone or a murder, but it was one nonetheless. Besides, one thing was still lingering in his processor.

“Even with Hank?” He asked quietly, locking his eyes briefly with the woman. Up until this moment, he carefully avoided unnecessary eye contact, even though every time he did it, he could hear Amanda’s disapproving voice.

“Of course not. Why would he be any different?” She asked gently, leaning a bit forward in her chair to keep at the same eye-level as Connor.

“B-because he is my o- uhh, …partner.” Connor coughed quietly to hide the slipup he nearly made. He was certain that the therapist could hear his thirium pump hammering from where she was sitting. Good thing that it sounded similar to a human heart, because that would have been difficult to explain. “And I’m supposed to help _ him  _ with that session?”

She slowly shook her head. “That has nothing to do with your privacy. I want you to know that you can tell me everything without being in any way apprehensive. And the information you are going to share is between you and me, Hank has his own story and you have your own. You needn’t worry about me telling him anything, unless you give me permission. Besides,” she tossed him a soft look “You are the one in the room right now, not him. I’ll be asking some questions about you too, but we will move to it when I explain everything, is that fine?”

“Okay…” Connor said quietly, resisting an urge to hug himself and double  over a bit to make himself feel smaller. His stress level still hovered in the 60s and had no intention of dropping, apparently.

“Good.” The therapist said brightly and now turned her attention to the clipboard she was holding. “I’m going to write down some things during the talk, my observations and  some information you share that’s important for me. You can either have a look at this after the session is finished, or leave it just for me, you decide. Now, the questions…” She shifted again and tapped her pen. “If you at any point feel uncomfortable, let me know. You don’t have to answer to every question, but if you do, please, be as truthful as possible. I need to understand you and your situation to be able to help. Remember, I won’t judge you or anyone from your family, I don’t know them personally. That includes even your partner, I treat the Hank I know as someone separate and potentially totally different from your version of him, so don’t be afraid to tell me anything.” She smiled again and Connor just nodded.

“F-fine.” He choked out, even though that was the last thing he felt. He didn’t feel comfortable at all with her asking about his family he didn’t have. He suspected that Amanda and CyberLife were the closest thing to it, but at the same time, he didn’t have a ready story. Hank had told him everything he had come up with during the therapy, but it wasn’t much, just that Connor was from an allegedly abusive environment. The Lieutenant had told him that he wouldn’t have liked to construct a story himself, rather allowing Connor to do it.

“Okay. So, are you ready to start, Detective?” When the android nodded, the woman clicked her pen open and tapped the clipboard. “Let’s begin with your interests and over all – you. Who is Detective Connor Stern? Tell me about yourself.” She turned her gentle eyes at Connor, completely unaware that her interlocutor’s stress just crossed 70%.

“I’m…” What was he going to say?  _ Interests? I don’t have any. _ “I’m not really a hobby person. I prefer to focus on my work.”  _ On my mission. _

“Hmm, that’s fine.” She wrote something down. “How old are you?”

Another hard question. If counting from the beginning of his base AI development, a year and a half. If from the moment he had gotten his first body, almost exactly a year. If from the beginning of the utter continuity of his memories, allowed to him with the beginning of the field tests, four months and a few weeks. If the age of his current body was concerned, not even a whole week. “Twenty seven years old.”

“That’s very young for a Detective.” She said with a sympathetic admiration that seemed genuine. “You must be a hard worker.”

“I try to be.” Connor said quietly. Maybe he was working hard, but what good  was it if he didn’t have any successes?

“You’re very modest. It’s an incredible achievement, to have this rank at such a young age, don’t you think? To be in this line of work in general.”

“I don’t know…”  _ She said I have to be truthful… _ “I was… I didn’t have much choice. I couldn’t be anything else.”  _ I can’t say I’ve been developed to be a detective prototype… _

The therapist furrowed her brows in confusion. “Were you pressured to pursue this career path?”

“Umm… Not really. I mean… there just wasn’t any other.” Connor said, feeling that he had just gotten tangled into his own statements.  _ I shoul͙̅d ̠͡h͙̋a̲v͖̌ȅ͚ l̤͍̎̋i̻̓e͔̖̙̊̍̊d̳̮́̍̽͢…̺̖̂͘͡ͅ _

“Hmm.” She wrote something down again. “Being a Detective is a very admirable job. Parents often encourage their children to pursue such professions. Is that what happened in your case?”

“Can… Yes. It can be put that way…”  _ Amanda definitely encourages me to be better at this all the time… _

“And do you enjoy your job?” The woman asked again, dropping her previous confusion. Connor was glad, he didn’t want to have to defend his purpose from her.

“Some parts.” Connor thought about the pleasant feeling of solving a mystery, finding a lead no one else had seen before.

“Just some?” She asked , raising her eyebrow. “Could you describe what  the other ones are?”

“I… n-no.” He desperately wished that the promise he could refuse to answer a question wasn’t a lie. Connor didn’t want to tell her about killing androids, animals and people, having to be killed over and over again for the sake of his mission. He looked up from the floor and locked his eyes with her, naturally afraid after having refused a human.

She noticed that. “That’s okay, I told you that you don’t have to share anything you don’t want to…” A lot of  seemingly genuine concern appeared in her eyes as she spoke again. “Are you worried about something, Detective Stern? You seem extremely stressed and I would rather like if you felt comfortable here…”

“S-sorry.” Connor forced himself to relax his shoulders and conjured a gentle smile on his face to look more appealing. It only served to confuse the woman even further.

“Oh… I didn’t meant for you to  _ fake _ being relaxed, I was talking about… I just wanted to make you  _ feel _ less uncomfortable…” Connor didn’t like how apprehensively she spoke. “You seem to be very good at faking and covering up your emotions though…”

Connor decided to stay silent at that. Instead, he took out his coin and flung it from one hand to the other, repeating the movement several times so fast that the coin blurred in the air. He didn’t want to talk about his feelings.

The therapist just quietly observed him, not commenting but writing down something again. When Connor moved to rolling the quarter across his knuckles, she spoke up. “Those coin tricks are impressive. Have you ever been interested in illusionism?”

“No.” Connor caught the coin, looking at her cagily. “I’ve already said I didn’t have any interests. Apart from dogs, maybe, I just… I like throwing it around. I helps me… I just like it.” He finished lamely.

“Hmm…” She tapped the clipboard thoughtfully and raised a serious gaze at him. “Have you ever been diagnosed by a specialist before? I’m talking about your mental condition, specifically Autism Spectrum Disorder or Asperger ’s syndrome?”

“N-no?” Connor tilted his head, bewildered. First and foremost, he was an android and the conditions she was talking about were specific to humans. And second of all, he had no idea where that assumptio n had come from. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, I see some symptoms that could be well explained by those development disorders, such as extreme fixation on one subject or a field of knowledge, namely your job as a Detective. Or, an ability to perform it extraordinarily well, which undoubtedly requires an analytical mind and outstanding intelligence. Or, difficulties in new situations, such as this visit, and troubles with openly talking about your feelings. Repetitive motions, playing with objects to distract you from  the reality you struggle to cope with.” She extended one hand, placing the clipboard in her lap. Connor still couldn’t see what she had written on it. “But at the same time, I can see no clumsiness and even though you keep avoiding eye contact, you seem to be able to read my cues well. The Lieutenant mentioned that you are quick to learn the mannerism s of other people and therefore, are difficult to lie to. You are well spoken, and the stutters and pauses in your statements are evidently tied to your nervousness, which doesn’t have to be necessarily caused by either of those disorders…” She extended the other hand, as if to illustrate two contradicting arguments.

Connor kept quiet, now just holding his coin. He stroked its surface idly, waiting for the therapist to elaborate, still not knowing how he felt about it.

“The thing is, that both ASD and Asperger syndrome differ from patient to patient and don’t always mean the same symptoms. That’s why it’s a spectrum, in the case of autism. Still, the most bizarre thing is that if you’ve been experiencing all of that, the diagnosis should have been made in an earlier stage of your life, up to the third year for regular autism and after third but usually still before reaching teenage, for atypical autism. If you’ve never been diagnosed, you’re functioning surprisingly well, given that you haven’t attended any therapy. But it’s also possible that you just have tendencies and are not near the middle of the spectrum.”

“I’m…” Connor didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t even sure how this was going to benefit Hank.  “I do not have trouble interacting with reality or being closed in on my own…  usually. I just… I’m just not used to it… I think… And my nervousness… Why  are you even diagnosing me if the session is supposed to help the Lieutenant?” Connor asked hesitantly, glad to have something to divert her attention at.

She  looked at him for a long while before she answered. “I just need to know you before I can understand how you were able to change your partner. But at the same time, I would like to help you too if I get a chance…”

“I don’t need any help.”  _ Certainly not from someone who doesn’t even know ̧̅wh̟̕a͈̚t̳̏ ̡̌I a̼̣͔͂̏̇ṁ̡̤̟̿̑. _

“I see.” The therapist nodded slowly, thoughtfully looking at the wall behind him. She waited some time before speaking again, allowing Connor to get out of his defensiveness again.

“What about friends and acquaintances? Do you like meeting people, making new contacts? Did you have a lot of friends in your childhood?”

“Umm… I like Hank and one other Officer on the force too… but in my childhood…” It was a problematic question, for obvious reasons. She wouldn’t react well to hearing that Connor hadn’t had a childhood. “I didn’t have any. F-friends I mean. I… There weren’t many opportunities for me to make any friendships.”

“How is that so?”

“I… My family… I just wasn’t really allowed to go out. My mother insisted that I should  be home-schooled. She was… um… trying to prepare me for the job the best she could, giving me all the education I could ask for and minimizing distractions. She just wanted the best for me.” Connor added when something strange appeared in the therapist’s eyes.

“So, you’ve never had any friends in your childhood? Have you ever felt lonely then?” She asked so sympathetically that Connor decided she was trustworthy.

“Y-yes… I was. But I had her and… She said she would always be there for me…” It hurt to say it out loud right now, since he had been trying to reach Amanda lately, but the transfer limit kept slipping away from him. He hadn’t seen her in weeks…

“You seem somber about her…” Dr. Chapman said softly. “Can you tell me more about your mother?”

“She is… a perfectionist. She has always  done everything in her power to raise me the best she could.” Connor smiled palely, looking at the clouds through the window, missing the apprehension that settled into the therapist’s eyes. “She is a very wise woman and her  advice has helped me a lot. To this moment, she has never been wrong about anything yet.”

“And how does thinking about her make you  _ feel _ ?” The question shocked Connor a bit.

“I can’t feel anything.” He whispered too quickly to stop himself and froze, realizing what he had just said.

There was a long silence after that, Dr. Chapman shifting slightly and Connor afraid to move, nearly forgetting that he was supposed to breathe to look human.

“What do you mean?” She asked finally, in a quiet, hesitant voice.

“N-nothing…” Her voice broke the spell over him and Connor couldn’t resist gripping his elbows anymore. He rolled the coin again and again, afraid to look up from the floor to undoubtedly see suspicion in her eyes.  _ What if she already knows I’m not ǎ̢ ̞̆h̪̕u̯̒ma̩̲̻̾̔͠ǹ̢̩̜̊̚? What if she is going to repö̘r̳̀t̠̃ ̡̥̇͒mę̠̹͆̋͗? I’m̳̐ ̬̏so͟͠ ͕̻̉̓s̬̕t̫͖̆̿ư̦͎̺̆̅̽͜pi̝̙͍̰͍̔̏̅̈͊̋͟d̛̮͙̬̮̺̊͊̐̑̈͜… _

“Detective, please, don’t feel pressured, I won’t make you confess if you don’t feel comfortable enough to do it, but I want you to know that what you’re telling me is concerning…” Her voice was soft and for now, she hadn’t called security yet, so Connor figured out she still wasn’t suspecting him. He slowly lifted his eyes to look at her.

“Why do you keep hiding your emotions like that? I know that… even for someone who is not necessarily in the autistic spectrum, talking about feelings and opening up to others can be hard, but… You almost seem like you purposely try to keep yourself from even having them…”

“N-no, I shouldn’t. I just… I don’t want to talk about this…” Connor desperately tried to avert the attention from the mess he had caused. The therapist nodded, but the next question was even worse.

“The Lieutenant mentioned that your family is… abusive. Now, I don’t want to judge anyone and I’m interested in hearing everything from your perspective… But what you described about your childhood isn’t…. a normal experience.”

“I don’t need a normal experience.” Connor barked out, suddenly defensive.  _ It’s normal for an RK800 detective prototype, but I cannot tell her that. _ “It was fine for me, and my mother prepared me well  for my profession. The Lieutenant doesn’t know her and he has no way of telling if she is abusive or not…”

“Detective, children are not supposed to be deprived of any possibility to make friends during their education. I understand that home schooling can be perceived as beneficial for some reasons, but it is important to socialize the student simultaneously. You’ve mentioned that your childhood was lonely and that you are having difficulties coping with the reality of working with people, because you’re not used to it…”

“I don’t  have to be used to it yet. I’ve been… It’s the right phase to introduce me to the world outside my home now. Not before. I wasn’t ready. You don’t understand and Hank doesn’t either. It was all for the better.” Connor said ardently, his nervousness shifting to irritation. They had no idea what they were talking about.

But he paused at the shock on the woman’s face she barely managed to conceal. “…What do you mean by ‘introducing you to the world outside of your home  _ now _ ’?”

Connor clenched his teeth , realizing that it wasn’t normal for humans to be developed in a closed off labs for the larger part of their lives before being let out to the ground level. “N-nothing. I just… wasn’t allowed to go out  _ that much _ .” He sighed when the therapist remained visibly shocked.

“Have you ever been hurt? ….On purpose?”  s he said , seemingly completely disregarding his reassurances. Her tone was gentle, careful not to set him off. Connor gritted his teeth.

“No.”  _ Punishment is not hurtï̼ñ̬̟̓ģ͙͕̅͘͝. I deser̞̽v̠̝͆̑ed ̨̤̆͠a̡͚͌͂ll̪͋ ̱̘͛̆͜͡͝ͅơ̫̞̌f͇̻̥͂̓ ̪̼̽͌t͓̜̤͉̰͉͛͂̊̈́̓̚h̪͉͕̙͇͓̊̍͐̈́̚͞a̡̨̟̪̟̾̑̃̄̈͘͜t̘̖͉̹̐͌̉͑͘͘͢͢. _

But something must have shown on his face, because the therapist asked the right question next time.

“Have you ever been hit? Has anyone in your home… ever beat you?”

Connor pressed his eyes shut, threading his fingers in his hair, nearly forgetting about the bandage. “I d-don’t want to answer that.”

She was silent for a long time before asking once more. She kept her eyes on Connor’s split lip and the bandage on his head. “I’ll ask just one more similar question. Has your mother ever dealt you pain on purpose?”

The android just grimaced in confusion.  _ What kind of an inquiry is that? _ “Of course. She cares about me.”

A minute passed in silence. Then another. Halfway through the third, Connor furrowed his brows, and unfurled from his position to look at the woman who was now too pale for her carnation and almost looked like the beige walls around them.

“Detective, please, can you tell me what you mean by ‘pain dealt on purpose’ that doesn’t classify as being hurt and… is obvious from someone who loves you?”

She sounded calm, but her voice was devoid of any cheerfulness it had before. Connor felt his thirium run cold again. The room was suddenly a lot smaller when she talked about the things Connor was so sure about with such an attitude, as if the truth that had taken him all his life to figure out and finally put him at peace, wasn’t even real to begin with.

“No.” He whispered quietly, now deathly afraid again. Nothing was ever true, humans liked to lie to him, all of them, Hank and everyone else, but he at last hoped that this one thing, the promise that he could leave when he wanted, was true. He tried one last time to divert the therapist ’ s attention to the most important matter. “Can we please focus on helping my ow- ….partner?”

“We are.” She said seriously. “Hank said that helping you is the only way, Detective Stern. Please… understand that he wants nothing but peace for you. You don’t have to be afraid of your mother here. Accept that we-“

“N-no!” She was startled by Connor’s sudden outburst. The android was now hunched over, looking at her with wide eyes like a feral animal, shaking with fear. “You... You’re with him on this, right? He planned all of this…” Connor shot up from his chair,  finally realizing what it was all about. “S-she warned me about this! I knew she was right a-and I still… let him…” His eyes glazed over, as he gripped his elbows again, so tightly that his skin almost retracted.

All of it finally made sense. The visit was not about Hank, it was about him. That’s why the therapist wanted to know him, not to hear about their relationship. That’s why his owner had been keeping himself from rightfully striking Connor for what he had done. A horrible idea dawned on him, as he took another step back from the therapist, who now stood up too, concerned and visibly unnerved.

“Y-you… I knew it. Is it a p-part of the punishment too?” Connor asked in an unsteady voice, feeling suddenly so lightheaded that he would have fallen if he wasn’t so horribly stiff. He could feel his breaths become more erratic and shaky.

“Connor, breathe. You are having a panic attack, please calm down. There is no need to be afraid…”

“N-no, I d-don’t believe you… Y-you are here to tear me away f-from her! I wo…I won’t…” He felt  choked by the  pain that clung to his chest and radiated throughout the rest of his body. Connor fell to his knees, gripping his elbows even tighter, feeling the plates of chassis shift and his bones ache in protest. Any more pressure and he could snap his own arms in panic. “S-she told me… I h-hurt the rose for h-her to forgive me and n-now I… it was all for nothing, because I c-can’t leave Hank and I can’t trust h-him… And he… he tries to do it again… H-he wants to steal me…”

“Connor, listen to me. No one is trying to steal anyone. Do you take any medications?” He shook his head, but after that, she kept on asking, each question slow and calm. “ Should I open a window, do you have problems breathing? Do you want to leave?” He heard Dr. Chapman ask, and remembered that he allegedly could get away at any time.  _ Yes, yes ye̹̔s̎ͅy̌͢e͕͓̿̆sy̬̦̲̌͊̕e͉͠s̥͎̬̃̉͊y̘̰̬͔̳͍̱̓̆̀͌̃̄͞ȩ̗̰̪͈̱̝̗̄̋̀̑̍͒͞s̢͈̭̠̞͖̠̗̠̼͆̄͋̂̀͊͒̈̎̂̎̿͜ͅ _

He would really have liked to go away from all of that manipulation, from all the lies, get back to Amanda, where he belonged. But when he tried to get up, his legs proved to be too wobbly to even support him and he crashed back to the floor. He was saved from hitting his head only by the therapist, who caught him by the shoulders and released him quickly enough to avoid making him feel caught.

“Okay… Let’s calm you a bit before leaving, all right? Connor, please, breathe…”

The prototype scrambled away as fast as he could and pressed himself to the corner, just like so many times earlier when people tried to hurt him.

He braced himself for the  clouts, pressing his head between his shoulders and wrapping his hands around it, sure that now, when he had uncovered their true colors, he would finally receive the traditional discipline, the one that hurt physically, instead of breaking his software. But no pain came, even though he was aware that the woman was crouching down on the floor, an arms-length away from him.

“Connor, it’s okay, no one is punishing you. No one is going to hurt you. It’s okay. You are in a safe place, we’re not trying to steal you, I promise. Breathe with me. In….. and out….. In….. and out……” She kept saying in a calm, gentle voice, soothingly instructing him to breathe and whispering sweet lies he didn’t believe.  Her voice’s practiced flow and soft tone did manage to make him a bit less frenzied, however. Connor could feel the knot in his chest loosen, and it became a little easier to breathe now.

“I’m so sorry that you had to go through this again. I would have been much more careful if I knew that you are so uncomfortable with that subject… Hank mentioned that he is struggling with problems like that too. You find it hard to communicate what exactly makes you feel bad, and that’s not your fault, but it can confuse people who want to help you. Please, don’t hesitate to tell him or anyone else when you feel overwhelmed in the future, okay?” She said apologetically, looking genuinely sorry.

Connor nodded in silence, regaining more and more of his composure. He was glad that the attack made him pale, because otherwise, he would have been blushing blue at having shown such a weakness. An RK800 should not be weak and yet, here he as, breaking down in a therapy appointment… He just hoped that his nano-skin was still thick enough to cover the serial code on his cheekbone and other factory markings on the chassis on his face.

“I know that it wasn’t exactly fair to bring you here like that, but I promise that it was all out of the best intentions. You can still leave if you want to, you could leave at any point, and I really hope that Hank had made it clear before bringing you here that we were not going to pressure you into doing anything. I will tell you why the Lieutenant decided that it was necessary, okay? I promise that he did all of that because he cares about you. Not to punish you.” Dr. Chapman said when she was sure that he returned to a normal breathing pattern.

_ As if it were two different things _ … Connor focused on keeping his breath calm and didn’t answer her, but she kept speaking, having made sure that he wasn’t overwhelmed again.

“He called me  late last evening, asking for an emergency visit for you. He had been talking about you a lot in the therapy and I know that he genuinely loves you. He really does care about you more than about any of his other colleagues and he feels obligated to protect you from whatever had happened to you in your past. When he described the panic attack you had experienced yesterday on the crime scene, I immediately booked a visit for you, suspecting that you would need some help to deal with what is gnawing at you. Hank had said that you were changed by that event. He is worried about you, Detective.” She said quietly again, speaking calmly and breathing in rhythm with him, allowing Connor to stay on the right track.

The android shook his head slowly, drained from his energy by the attack. “I… He can’t. I can’t leave her.”

“Detective, while I initially thought that your anxiety could be caused by a developmen tal  disorder, now I am leaning towards Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. You are displaying more than enough symptoms to diagnose it.” She said softly. “I am sorry to tell you that, but the environment that could cause such a problem is not normal. Now, please note that we are not trying to alienate you from your… mother…. or your family.” There was a strange hesitation before she said those words, but Connor didn’t give it much thought, too wrung out to still be on the lookout for the tiniest unsettling details.

“I don’t know them and I don’t want to antagonize any of your relatives, not knowing what really happened. If they truly love you though, they will undoubtedly listen to you. I suggest that you speak with her, share what is bothering you, converse with her on your own terms. Somewhere where you feel safe. I’ve heard a few things today, but it’s not a full picture and I will not jump to conclusions. However…” She slightly shifted, changing her pose so that she was able to better look in the eyes of the android who was still watching her mistrustfully, with half-lidded, shadowed eyes. “I should also inform you that abuse is a crime. Domestic violence is a crime. I’m sure that as a Detective, you know it. If you have ever been hurt, if you feel unsafe around your family, please consider getting help. I’m not only talking about police and cases, but also about emotional support. Hank is a very good candidate, even though he is still struggling with his own mental health. Someone who truly loves you is the best person to carry you through the hardships and problems of this nature. Speaking to him, voicing your concerns is the first step to leaving all of that behind.”

Connor raised his head tiredly. It was all funny from his perspective. “I can’t speak to him, I would be getting  further away from her. Besides,” He let his head drop at his knees back. “It’s for nothing anyway. You’re going to tell him everything.”

“Detective Stern,  this is a regular session in every way but the fact that you are not my official patient. I promised you that I’m not allowed to share what happened here with anyone, Hank included. While I strongly suspect that a crime, or numerous crimes  have been committed against you in your family, I can’t take any actions without your consent either. It’s all you choice.”

Connor was startled by his own laugh. _What_ _nonsense. K̛̫͊͜ĩ̜l̜̓li̫̐̿͟ṇ̋ǧ̖ an android, even fifty times over, is not a crime. I’m committing a wo̥͌r͚͂s͉͌e̞͑ cr̳͋ị̾m̝͐ë̖́ right now, being here in clothes without triangles on them._ “Nothing happened in my house. I… I don’t want to do anything.”

“It’s your choice, but I at least hope that you will return here at some point, I can promise you that psychotherapy could help you cope with a lot of troubles you are struggling with. And I hope that you didn’t lose trust in me for speaking with you while you were under the impression that the visit had another purpose. We really did want to help Hank… But that includes helping you too. You are very important for him.”

Connor nodded, accepting her help standing up. He was glad that , unlike Hank , she tried not to assume for certain that Amanda was harming him. Some of what she said now calmed Connor a bit and made him feel a little safer again. He still knew that the woman was lying about the choice he had, but it seemed that they were not as fervent and immediate about kidnapping him from Amanda’s reach as Connor had feared. They would attempt at some point again, Connor had no doubts, but he was glad that Dr. Chapman wasn’t too pushy for now.

“Can I have your notes?” Connor asked quietly, just as they were going towards the doors, the therapist seeing him out of the building safely. He wanted to have them, to destroy any evidence of Connor Stern ever existing. He couldn’t risk anyone knowing his secrets, and the notes would be out of his reach forever once he left the office. Connor didn’t plan returning here ever again.

Dr. Chapman looked at him strangely, but after a moment nodded thoughtfully. “Yes. If it was an official session, I would have kept them or made a copy. But it isn’t. And I would like to win some of your trust back. If you ever decide to visit again,  please bring them with you.” She returned to the table where she had left the clipboard and retrieved the document.

Getting back to Connor, she didn’t immediately give it to Connor. “It is a therapy session, however, so I have to help you. And my help is: make up your mind about your trauma.  You are intelligent and have an analytical mind. I believe that what you’ve been through affects how you perceive reality. Try to evaluate it with a fresh outlook, gain another insight. And talk to Hank. Share. Speak to your mother as well. You will feel better, I promise.” She offered him a gentle smile and led him through the corridor they had walked earlier with Hank.

Once they stepped into the reception,  Connor saw the Lieutenant  slumped on one of the chairs ,  reading a book. He stood up as soon as he saw them enter, a worried expression on his face. Connor pressed his lips into a tight line, but forced himself to politely say goodbye to the therapist. It wasn’t her fault that Hank lied to him, and even though she aided in that strange form of punishment, she seemed not to hold any bias towards Amanda and therefore Connor wasn’t suspicious towards her.

Hank approached, more and more apprehension settling into his eyes with each step.

“Con? How did it go?” He asked softly, evidently feeling guilty at seeing the android already disillusioned about this whole event. Connor just stared at him for a long while and turned away without a word. He wasn’t even angry at Hank, just tired. Besides, he had no call in the way his owner decided to punish him.

Hank didn’t push any further for now, but  still cast glances every now and then as they drove in silence. When they were back home, he tried to establish a conversation again, but to no avail. Connor didn’t want to speak with him knowing that he had set all of that up to steal him when  he could just as well have beaten the android and  been done with the punishment. Connor would have preferred that, physical violence was so much easier now that he knew it  was associated with love, not hate.

Connor spent the rest of the day in the corner, staring at a wall while sitting on the floor, turned away from Hank. He could not speak with the human, but felt  too heavy with everything to do anything else. The prototype was deaf to the human’s pleas to at least move on the couch for the night. He couldn’t disobey his Master, but if he felt too broken to do anything apart from changing back  into his uniform upon arriving at home, was this really a disobedience?

“Connor…” Hank sat on the floor beside him, but the android couldn’t see him anyway, keeping his forehead on the wall and eyes shut. “Son, I’m so s-sorry. I w-wanted to help you…”

The android’s chest hurt fiercely, at hearing the horrible waver in his owner’s voice, knowing that Hank was crying and had been for some time. He had heard the man break down right after Connor put on the jacket back and sat in the corner. The android would have cried if he wasn’t so numb too.

Hank’s voice was barely recognizable under the weight of his sobs. “C-Connor please… s-say something. An-nything. Con, please. I l-love you so much…”

“I know.” The android whispered loudly enough for Hank to hear, but too quietly to call it a proper response.  _ I know that you l̛̰ov͚̉e̳̽ m̯̆e̙͒ and I know that it is ġ̩o̗̿in̼̰̊͛g ̗̘͖̽̍͠t̪̥͇͊̋͋o ̼͝h͉̟̏̐ṳ̧̬̼͚̎͌̊͐͡ř̡͖̼̘͔͛͋̾̚t̛̮̠̞̖̅̂̾͋ͅ. Please, just deal with it already. _

“Con, are y-you angry at me? You… you h-have every right, but… I really didn’t want t-to lie to you. I wanted to h-help you. I w-wanted you to talk to her, open up… She helped me b-before… Con, I hate seeing you suffer… Please, f-forgive me…”

“Hank…” Connor was unable to raise his voice above a whisper. He was also unable to turn away from the wall. He felt paralyzed, but somehow too weak to even feel terrified by it. It was beyond his control, just like everything else. “I’m not angry. I could never be angry at my owner.”

“C-Connor… I’m n-not…” Hank sounded shocked. Why he was suddenly so surprised by the role he had written in bold letters on paper in the lease documents, the prototype had no idea.

“You are. You are my owner and I am your property. You can do whatever you want with me. I’m not surprised you chose for me. I shouldn’t be allowed to have a choice at all.” It was right. Hank was finally acting like he should have. He should have been choosing for him from the beginning. The android missed just corporal punishment to finally be at peace. Connor sighed deeply, gathering all his strength to turn around. He felt totally wrung out.

Hank was pale as a wall, his red-rimmed eyes shimmered with tears that  fell constantly on his cheeks and wetted his beard, his entire frame was shaking with sobs, but at the same time, absolutely horrified shock kept his face frozen. He looked horrible.

And Connor had no words, he felt numb and emotionless, but couldn’t see Hank like that. The suffering of the human whom Connor loved so much and so fiercely, managed to pierce the soft noise insulating everything reaching him in that moment. Unaware of what he was actually doing, Connor reached and came closer to Hank, hooking his arms clumsily around his neck and pressing himself to his owner. Hank sobbed harder and returned the embrace, burying his face in the android’s hair.

“C-Con…”

“I’m tired, Hank.” Connor whispered and slackened in the human’s arms. Hank wept for several more minutes and then muttered an “okay…” gently picking Connor up and setting him on the couch. Connor pressed his head into the pillow, too impassive to care what was going to happen to him. Maybe that was the ultimate effect of Hank’s bizarre punishment, his machinations designed to take Connor away from Amanda? He was too tired to think about it anymore, as the unresponsive void where the Garden had been engulfed him whole.

“Con… I’m gonna… I’m gonna s-stay with you, okay?” Hank whispered, petting Sumo, who settled quietly on Connor’s legs. “I’ll s-stay with you for the entire night. I d-don’t want you t-to be alone…”

Connor didn’t say anything. It wasn’t his choice anyway. Again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Hank fucked up again. And he has no idea where.  
> Don't worry though, they are going to talk about it soon and clear a lot of stuff out. Connor's mental state is a trainwreck, but we are rapidly approaching a moment when he spills the beans and just tells Hank what is wrong with him already!
> 
> The therapist's visit, the questions she asked and what the procedure looked like in general was inspired by my own experience, so I hope it is realistic. And don't worry, it wasn't ultimately the worst idea to get Connor there. They just didn't know which buttons to avoid pressing and Connor isn't exactly vocal about it...
> 
> And well, some of you may be surprised by the initial diagnose, but you have to admit that Connor displays a lot of the symptoms... Actually I wasn't writing him with a view on making him fit the spectrum, but it sort of just unfurled this way. Well, we are all special in our own ways...
> 
> Let me know what do you think about all of that! I love reading your comments ♥️
> 
> (and Lydia's surname isn't a coincidence ;) *YES SHE IS NAMED CHAPMAN, THANK YOU SKEIN I need to be less sleep-deprived...*)


	46. Hare and Hounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor had to navigate through Hank's confusing love and his confusing ways to punish him.  
> And he had to somehow manage to evade the extension of the punishment yet to come too. Even though he had been through worse, he didn't want Hank to hit him again, even if he deserved it.  
> Despite knowing that it was only a part of being loved, something told Connor that each time Hank would have dealt him pain, a piece of him would have shatterred irreversibly...
> 
> But that wasn't the only thing he should have been wary of...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, and... well...  
> For all those who had read the last chapter before Skein (thank you so much again) pointed out that I made a serious mistake, you should know that I somehow managed to confuse surnames Campbell and Chapman (yes, sorry to rob you of the ah-ha moment...). Hank's therapist has always been meant to be named Lydia Chapman and it is now corrected. I hope that you will forgive me that mistake and I promise that I will sleep at least six hours tonight to avoid writing while barely conscious xddd  
> I also somehow managed to confuse Michigan with Maine (yes, I know. Impressive.) So thank you again, Emma+Rose, for bringing that to my attention!
> 
> This chapter is miraculously free of Trigger Warnings. The only one could be against Perkins, who is an asshole as usual. Enjoy!

The night was surprisingly calm for him, but then again, everything felt numb for Connor all of a sudden since leaving the therapist’s office. Still, the lack of stasis disruptions was a pleasant treat. The android recalled that it had happened once after the first punishment he had received from Hank too, when he was too tired and offloaded to afford anything but the most basic functions required to operate his body.

Now, however? Connor wasn’t as totally exhausted as he had been after the entire night of crying. He opened his eyes, feeling the pleasant buzz of electricity in the matt underneath him. His batteries were full. He definitely had had energy for the glitches...

But he could also feel something warm in his hand. At night, the temperature of his body  dropped due to the lack of friction in his joints and energy spent in his muscles. This meant that Connor was often groggy and frigid in the morning, the comforter he was sleeping under not enough to keep him warm without the duvet Hank had given him last night. Now the receptors in his hand felt like the parts of his body trapped beneath Sumo, warmed by the heat of life Connor lacked.

The android turned his head, shifting on the couch to face Hank, slumped on the floor, snoring quietly in his sleep. He was sitting on a cushion and his back was propped against an armchair moved to the couch at night. Connor furrowed his brows, not understanding why the human was sleeping in that pose. He remembered the promise his owner had made last evening, the claim that he would stay with him till the morning, but there were much more comfortable places to rest in the living room, even aside from the couch Connor had been occupying. Hank had often dozed off in the very armchair he was currently leaning against.

Something fluttered in Connor’s chest as he realized that it was the only position allowing Hank to keep holding the android’s hand in his sleep. The prototype wasn’t sure what to think. It was heartwarming to know that Hank did so much to provide Connor the touch that had comforted him so many times. But at the same time, he was worried, knowing that the uncomfortable pose would likely make Hank’s back hurt for the entire day. Additionally… Amanda’s punishments often started with sweet caresses such as this one…

Connor took in a shaky breath, observing Hank with sudden apprehension. The uncertainty whether his punishment was already over gnawed at Connor’s mind , infecting every thought in his processor. Connor didn’t want to lean into the soft, loving gestures of the human knowing that he still wasn’t forgiven for what he had done. That would have been unfair towards Hank, not paying the whole price and cherishing in his love. And Connor still had a hunch that there was more to come. Knowledge that Hank was trying to destroy the prototype’s bond with Amanda hurt, but not nearly as much as being told that he was no longer loved. And physical pain had still to be dealt.

_ It’s not ̤̓oṽ̺e̗̋r ÿ̮et _ , Connor reached a conclusion. Each punishment had to be worse than the one before.  _ There is m̤͑ȏ͈ȓ͇ē̯ to come. _

He carefully removed his hand from Hank’s grip and untangled himself from the comforter, escaping the couch without waking the human up. They were supposed to get back to work today, no fake appointments with  psychiatrists who were amicable but unaware of Connor’s true problems were scheduled for today. This meant that the android needed to prepare his owner for work, make him breakfast and walk Sumo. There was no time to lose, Connor needed to advance the investigation as soon as possible if he wanted to have at least  a fraction of usefulness he was supposed to possess.

Since Hank had been a light sleeper, he woke up the moment Connor started some more elaborate brewing in the kitchen. The android registered the movement in his peripheral and moved to pick up the cup to  serve the human his light morning dose of coffee laced with plenty of milk.

“Good morning, Lieutenant.” Connor said emotionlessly, engrossed in the task of frying an omelet. The human observed him from the floor with tired, droopy eyes, not having moved since stirring. Even his hand that was intertwined with Connor’s was still on the couch. “It’s still early for your usual awakening, I didn’t mean to wake you, but had to start breakfast.”

Hank clenched his teeth in something that looked like powerlessness and shook his head tiredly, sighing. “It’s okay, Connor. I don’t mind.”

The android nodded, feeling a little relieved. He quickly finished  making breakfast and  set it on the table for Hank, who looked even more tired than in the evening. It could well be the night he had  spent on the floor, but something told Connor that Hank’s visible exhaustion came from a place much deeper than his body.

When the android moved to take Sumo for a walk, Hank surprisingly stood up too. Connor usually  spent the morning walk alone, leaving Hank to shower and get ready to leave for work, while he took care of the animal. But this time, the human shrugged on a jacket alongside Connor, then picking up the smaller one the android had used yesterday.

“I want to go with you. And… Con, why don’t you use this one? It’s warmer.”

The android trained his vacant eyes on the teal jacket they had bought. “There are no android designation symbols on it. I can’t use it.”

Hank sighed, the tiredness returning to his glance. “We can solve that.”

The human moved to the shopping bag they had brought in yesterday and took out a small black box with CyberLife logo on it. He extracted two luminescent triangles, a large patch with an ‘ANDROID’ tag, a brightly lit blue armband and two smaller panels that could be programmed into showing whatever model number was needed. Connor watched apathetically as Hank tried and failed several times to fasten the symbols to the jacket evenly by putting flexible magnets on both sides of the material, and eventually moved to help the human,  wanting to prevent them from being late to work. Once they finished, the jacket was equipped with exactly the same symbols as Connor’s original blazer, sporting triangles, armband and bright white RK800s on his right breast and back. The only things that were missing was Connor’s exact serial number and body count, as regular androids didn’t need such extensions.

Connor quietly enjoyed Hank’s presence on the walk, despite knowing that at some point, the rest of the punishment from the man would catch up to him. The android tried to push the fear away from his mind, knowing that the pain to come was well deserved and stemmed from affection, not hate. It was easier to bear it, having that knowledge. And a walk with Sumo and their owner was always a pleasant experience, no matter how much Connor tried not to fall for false illusions of his broken software. The warmth also felt nice . T he teal jacket , finally legal to wear , eliminated  the frosty stinging on Connor’s skin and deep in his bones. Despite his efforts, a small smile appeared on his lips and as soon as it did,  Hank’s face seemed to lose at least ten years of age.

The rest of the morning  was uneventful , and despite the slight delay caused by Hank accompanying Connor on the walk, they arrived to work on time. Hank was greeted by Captain Fowler as soon as they entered the bullpen. The man narrowed his eyes at Connor’s clothes and  lifted an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything,  instead asking Hank if he was  alright and completely disregarding the android. The Lieutenant ’s answer was ambiguous and short, making the Captain furrow his brows. Connor didn’t listen to their further talk, wanting to advance the investigation as soon as possible. He left the teal jacket on the back of his chair and gestured at his owner to let him know that he was walking away without interrupting their talk.

Connor looked for Detective Chen for several minutes and finally found her in one of the private offices in the depths of the precinct. She and a few others were seemingly visiting another Officer who occupied the office for the day. Connor tilted his head at the commotion, but couldn’t place his finger on what was happening without peering inside.

He opted for waiting for her outside, not wanting to impose his presence on the officers there. Sure enough, several minutes later, Detective Chen, wearing a tank top with Pocahontas under a black cardigan, was the last one to leave the room alongside Officer Person.

“Good Morning, Detective Chen, Officer Person.” Connor greeted politely as soon as they looked at him.

“Oh, hi, Connor. You here to greet Chris after returning from the hospital, after a life-threatening injury?” She asked mirthfully, still laughing after a seemingly lighthearted visit to her colleague. The mention of Officer Miller made a little warm light ignite in the android’s chest.

“Chris is here?” Connor asked hesitantly, trying to peer inside. “N-no, that’s not why I‘ve been looking for you, Detective Chen, but actually I’d like to meet him…”

“Whoa, whoa, hold on.” His attempt at entering the room was stopped by a firm hand that was placed on his chest and pushed him away from the door. Connor tilted his head in confusion, looking at Officer Person who moved in front of the entrance as if guarding it from the android. “Are you sure that it’s a good idea  for him to see you when he's recently been held at gunpoint by your kind, tin-man?”

Connor opened his mouth in surprise, feeling hurt by the question, so much so that he was at a loss for words. Thankfully, Detective Chen spoke for him.

“Jesus, Person, chill the fuck out…” She looked at her coworker with a mixture of repulsion and shock. “Connor’s not a deviant and he would never do anything like that… Give him a break, seriously, you’ve spend too much time with the old Gavin…”

The other woman pouted, seemingly offended. “I’m just worrying about Chris’ mental health, have you seen Henry? There is a reason why they both got private offices for the next few days…”

“Oh, come on, Chris was joking about androids and this fussing about his ‘trauma’ a minute ago. He’s not Henry and besides, he had been asking about Hank and Connor before you came here. Go eat a Snickers, I’m going to see Chris once again with Connor.” She shooed the other woman away, making her roll her eyes.

Officer Person snorted and muttered, “Fine, whatever.” moving to leave and not sparing another glance at Connor. He turned his gaze at the shorter woman.

“I don’t want to upset Chris by my presence…” He said quietly, but was quickly hushed by Detective Chen.

“Connor, Person is dense and she has no self-awareness or sense of humor. Unlike Chris. Come on, he was going to meet you sooner or later anyway.” With those words, she opened the doors and dragged the android inside.

Officer Miller beamed the moment he saw Connor, completely disregarding any anxiousness Connor could have had. “Oh, my, I’ve been wondering when you’d come by, Con, why so late?” He grimaced in a display of a fake offence, and it made Connor feel a bit lighter, taking a chunk of the burden he was carrying off his shoulders.

“I wasn’t aware that you were back, Offi- Chris.” Connor smiled sheepishly and came closer to shake a hand with the man. “Hank doesn’t know about it too, I could send him a message right now.”

“Good, I could tell both of you a thing or two about Markus, if you are interested…” He chuckled, seeing Connor’s eyes grow wider with anticipation.

“Okay, I’ll leave you to it, as I said, Chris, I have a few urgent things to take care of…” Detective Chen said and moved to leave, but Connor stopped her.

“Actually, I wanted to ask you about that data I sent you yesterday, Detective Chen…” The android wrung his hands out, glancing at the woman with hope.

She smiled and nodded. “One of the urgent things I was talking about! I  ran the databases search yesterday, I’m gonna send you result as soon as I get to my desk!”

“Thank you, Detective.” Connor smiled back still a little sheepish, making her wave a hand at him.

“No problem. And stop with that ‘Detective , ’ y’know my name is Tina, right?” Having said that, she winked to him and left the office, hurrying back to the bullpen.

Connor turned to Chris, who didn’t seem affected in any way by the event from two days ago. He had just a few scratches and bruises that were hard to see on his dark skin. The friendly and open demeanor of his was still as bright and hospitable as ever. The android smiled.

“I’m glad that you are okay, Chris. We were very worried after receiving the message from Captain Fowler. I’m so happy that the deviants spared you and your partner, and I hope that Officer Bennett is going to recover soon as well.” Connor said softly, clasping his hands behind his back. The message  had been sent to Hank, and the android just received an enthusiastic response.

“Don’t worry about him, I guess he’s just a bit shaken by the guilt.” Chris waved his hand dismissively. “It’s no trauma on his part too, though I gotta admit that the deviants were quite scary…”

Connor furrowed his brows. The first part of Chris’ statement didn’t make sense for him. “Guilt? What do you mean?”

“You know…” The human sighed, leaning forward to put his elbows on the desk and look at Connor with more serious eyes this time. “He killed quite a few of those androids, I’m not surprised that they charged us and disarmed. Honestly, I'm a bit stunned that they didn’t kill us right away. There was so much anger and sorrow on their faces, one of the normally dressed deviants, a woman with long, red hair…”

“North?” Connor asked hesitantly, and when Chris looked at him questioningly, he raised a hand, displaying the image of her face on his palm.

“Yes! That’s the one!” Chris confirmed and then shook his head, visibly disturbed. “She was so devastated. One of the fallen deviants looked exactly like her, probably the same model, When she raised her eyes at us again, after kneeling for a good few minutes beside her dying twin, I thought that she would tear us in half with just her bare hands. And you know what happened?” He leaned even closer, his face lighting up in utter  amazement , as if he was talking about a genuine miracle he had witnessed.

Connor shook his head slowly, not knowing what to think about this whole situation. According to his predictions and the previous footage of North’s behavior, the female android was keen on killing humans. She logically should have murdered both the Officers without second thought.

“Markus came, stepping over his people Henry had killed, looking equally as distraught and shocked as the rest of the deviants. He stopped in front of us and I could see that he was angry as well. One of the others, the one who took our weapons pressed my gun  into his hand and said that they wanted justice, that we  had to pay. Honestly, I don’t think many of us, humans, would do anything  different in that situation…” He sighed again and Connor thought that maybe the event actually had some effect on the Officer. He looked thoughtful, contemplating the resolution of the situation.

“But Markus said ‘ _ an eye for an eye and the world goes blind… _ ’ He said that they wouldn’t punish a crime with another crime. And then, they just… let us go. Their leader tossed the gun to the android who had given it to him, and… he looked at us with repulsion. But not hatred.”

Chris shook his head and looked like he wanted to say something more, but in that moment, the doors opened and Hank entered the office, still looking as tired as ever today, but smiling a bit nonetheless. Chris had  the ability to make everyone’s day better and Connor’s owner was not excluded from the effect. The android’s heart warmed a bit seeing that.

“Hey, Chris, how are you doing?” Hank asked softly, sitting at the chair Connor had left unoccupied for that exact reason.

“Great.” The man cocked his head, a playful spark ignited in his eyes. “And you look like shit for a change. What’s that about, Hank?” He added, a gentle concern now present in his voice.

The Lieutenant just smiled tiredly, waving his hand. “I… nothing. Connor said you could tell us something about Markus and his lot?”

Chris recounted the story again, not missing on the same emotional responses he played out while talking earlier to Connor. The android listened to the same story for the second time but was equally as confused as earlier. A lot of what the man was saying directly contradicted everything they knew about the deviants. Hank seemed to have the same sentiments as Connor.

“But…” He rubbed his beard thoughtfully, tapping the notebook with his pen. “It doesn’t make sense. I mean… shit, I’m glad that Markus was there. I can get that he’s a bit different, I spoke with his owner a few days ago and he had some pretty compelling arguments, but the rest of the deviants are just… I don’t get why they even waited for him. According to our findings, they are basically frenzied, dangerous creatures driven by madness or fear.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” Chris shook his head. “Their actions were pretty consistent and I  can actually understand them. Logically, they deserved some payback on us for killing some of them for basically doing what? They were trashing the Plaza, but to be honest, I now see no damage that wouldn’t be fixed with a few swipes of broom and window-cleaning. The worst thing they’ve done was breaking the CCTV and shop windows, but they only did the  bare minimum to free their affiliates. That’s why I didn’t want to harm them, but Henry panicked. Yet, Markus seemed willing to  rise above the need to avenge his people…” Chris shook his head ardently and looked firmly at Hank. “They weren’t violent nor frenzied. I don’t know, maybe those under Markus’ leadership are somehow superior? Maybe he upgrades them somehow?”

Connor furrowed his brows. “I’ve been combing through the software of both the HK400’s unit from Ortiz’s attic and the JB300’s from the Stratford Tower, but while I found similar changes made to their codes, I couldn’t find a difference in the way it developed. I don’t think that Markus is capable of giving his followers any updates remotely.”

“And maybe it’s just a leadership?” Hank turned several pages in his notebook, going back to the transcript from the talk with the painter. “Manfred was the previous owner of Markus. And he attempted to raise him to be a good person. That quote about eyes sounds like something he could say…”

“Actually, it’s by Mahatma Gandhi.” Connor said quietly, having looked it up quickly. “I saw a book or two of his authorship in Mr. Manfred’s house.”

Hank nodded thoughtfully, but it was Chris who broke the long silence after that. “Maybe you should update your views on the deviants then. If they were indeed all just frenzied robo-animals, they would have killed us regardless of Markus’ quotes. It’s not like they are compelled to listen to anyone once they break their programming, right? Could have  just as well ignored him, but maybe what he said touched something within them? Maybe machines can have  a conscience too.”

Hank was looking at his notebook for a long time, deep in thought before he finally stood up and thanked his colleague for his help. “Okay… I got a lot to think about… Uhh… Fuuuck, my back hurts….”

“Ha, not fun getting old, Hank.” Chris smiled. “I’ve already been sitting for too long too, in an hour or two I’m gonna head out for some food from Chicken Feed, you want something?”

The Lieutenant shook his head. “No, I’m done with trash food. Connor would turn deviant and kill me for it without Markus around. I’m on a diet. Say ‘hi’ to Gary  for me, though …”

“Whoa, impressive.” The younger cop laughed. “Let me know when it is going to have any effect, so far I can’t see much…”

“Shut up, I’m trying.” A tiny smile appeared on Hank’s lips regardless of the words that left them. “Come on, Con, we’re gonna do some digging, I could use your help…”

“Y-yes, just a minute, Lieutenant…” Connor said, resisting the urge to follow his owner immediately at the mention of a possibility to be utilitarian. “I’ll join you in a moment…”

Hank raised an eyebrow, but shrugged, closing the doors. “Okay, I’ll be by our desks then.” He said, closing the doors finally.

Connor turned to the Officer, playing with the rim of his blazer anxiously. The mention of the food truck got him an idea, but he was afraid to voice it…

Chris shot him a questioning look. “Connor? You look like you want to  say something…”

“I…” The android swallowed thickly, turning around to make sure no one was observing them. “I w-wanted to ask… for a favor, Chris…” He said quietly, coming closer so that the human could hear him.

The Officer was looking at the prototype with bewilderment but also something that could be curiosity. “Uh… What kind of a favor?”

“I was… I…” Connor took out his coin, gripping it tightly. He was aware that doing favors for an android was highly unusual, especially since the prototype was technically not allowed to ask humans for anything. But he had no other options, and Chris was the only human besides Hank who was close enough with Connor for him to count on their help. “You are going to the Chicken Feed, right? I… I saw a shop nearby that could… I need something from there and I can’t buy it myself because I would have to report that to CyberLife or Hank and I would… I would rather that he didn’t know…” Connor bit his lip anxiously, seeing suspicion creeping up Chris’ face.

“Uh… Why? What is it?” The human asked cagily in hushed voice as well, observing Connor as if he was trying to determine if he wasn’t being joked about.

“It’s a bucket of white wall paint, I’ve seen the pricing and it should be around thirteen dollars, plus three for a painting roller and a paint tray… I kn-now that it’s a bit, but please, Chris, I c-could try to somehow make it up to you… I really need those…” Connor was speaking hurriedly, trying to tell him everything before the human inevitably silenced him. The skepticism on Chris’ face was making him afraid that the human  not only wouldn’t comply with the request, but also decide to tell Hank about it…

“Uh, sixteen dollars is not that much, relax… but what do you need that for? And why don’t you want Hank to know?” Chris wasn’t reaching for his phone or standing up to get Connor’s owner, and his eyes softened a bit as soon as he heard what objects the android needed, so the prototype’s stress level froze in place instead of climbing up.

“I… I may have… destroyed Hank’s wall on accident and I would really like to fix it before he finds out…” Connor said quickly, glancing around his shoulder again. “I’m scared that he would be angry at me if he knew, s-so I don’t want to tell him…” Connor was long used to voicing his exact thought around Chris as well, the Officer  never made a comment that it was weird for a machine to feel emotions. He didn’t focus on it this time  either.

“You know, Connor I think that Hank doesn’t care about the state of his walls anyway, and to be honest, I think that even if he did, he still wouldn’t prefer them above you… I should technically tell Fowler that he has such a soft spot for you, but fuck that, it’s wholesome. But anyway, I can get you that paint. It’s nothing and if it bothers you, I’ll keep it a secret from Hank as well.” Chris smiled, making Connor sigh with relief.

“Thank you so much….” Connor grinned, his knees almost bending with reprieve. “If you could leave it all under Hank’s car, near the back right tire?...”

“Con, that’s overkill, but okay, if it’ll make you happy…” Chris shrugged. “Send me the exact address of that shop, the kind of paint you want, and stop worrying about the money. I can get that done.”

Connor beamed and complied, thanking the human again. Before returning to his desk, he made two perfect coffees, both with chocolate and no whiskey, and took one to Officer Miller who was moved by the gesture and thanked Connor with a bright, amused chuckle. The android took the other coffee, feeling the closest to normal ever today at the perspective of avoiding the punishment for at least the wall. But once he entered the bullpen, he froze seeing no one next to their posts.

Connor furrowed his brows, looking around in confusion. Hank had said that he was going to wait for him next to their desks, but might have been called by someone to help them, or ventured to the break room, but the android didn’t spot him anywhere there. It was only when he went by the glass office of the Captain and peered inside that he saw his owner alongside a few familiar and a few new silhouettes there.

The android stopped at the bottom of the short stairs to the office, chewing his lip and unsure what to do, the coffee still in his hand. The Captain noticed him and gestured with his head subtly, ordering Connor to come in.

Unlike usually, he wasn’t sitting  in his armchair behind the desk,  he now  occupied one of the seats near the wall. Hank had a similarly important place, sitting on the visitor’s side of the desk, while the most important and comfortable chair was occupied by a short man in gray trench coat, with an aquiline nose on his ever displeased face.

“Oh,  speak of the devil. Our precious prototype returns, bearing gifts, I see. I don’t fancy coffee, but well,  there’s only so much that technology can get us, am I right?” He snorted a derisory huff and reached for the coffee Connor was holding.

The android furrowed his brows and moved his hand  at the perfect moment to make Special Agent Perkins miss the cup, instead extending it in Hank’s direction. Connor made eye contact with the shocked FBI Agent, listening to a muffled chuckle from the Captain. Something told him that the man wasn’t fond of Richard Perkins either.

“Uh, thanks, Con.” Hank muttered quietly, taking the cup cautiously and looking at the Agent with apprehension. The anxiousness in his owner’s eyes affected Connor and he could soon feel it as well.  _ Why is Hank so worried? Should I be too? How worried should I be? Oh, no, something bad is happening… _

Agent Perkins narrowed his eyes and straightened his back, clasping  his hands behind himself, eager to ignore the awkward moment, despite the tiniest  of smiles on the faces of Fowler and  the two other FBI agents present in the room as well. The only people who were not amused were their chief, Connor and Hank.

“As I was saying, before that thing interrupted our meeting, your findings aren’t that impressive, Lieutenant. As merging the cases is finally complete, I estimate that we will no longer need your help,  and we’ll instead send people actually qualified to do the job.” He wrinkled his nose comically, looking at Hank. “My team managed to uncover  the name of both the terrorist organization responsible for the Stratford Tower and Capitol park, as well as the alleged refuge for the deviants. Both are called ‘Jericho’ and are said to be based somewhere in Detroit, although the exact  location is yet to be uncovered. And what did you find? A jacket with some initials and a machine that self-destructed and is useless.”

“That’s bullshit.” Hank spat, although with much less fire than  usual , which only served to fuel Connor’s concerns. “Oh yeah, behold the Mighty Jericho, you have a single word. Nice, keep looking for more and in a few  months you’re gonna be able to play Scrabble with Markus. What did you manage to uncover for real, hmm? I’m sorry, but you haven’t even looked into  Connor’s and my findings on this case. We’re getting there.”

“Where?” Agent Perkins asked, twisting his face in a mocking grimace. “On a psychiatrists’ settee? With all due respect, Lieutenant, but we need people capable of doing their job at the deviants’ case, not alcoholic wrecks who can’t get over a destroyed android.” He shot a suggestive look at Connor and a murderous fire ignited in Hank’s eyes. “The investigation is too  important for you to hinder it with a sick leave  every few days  because you have to get your traumas out of your head. My department has plenty of people eager to work day and night on the case, just like it should be.”

Hank’s knuckles gripping the armrests went white as he clenched his fists, his face darkening. The Captain shifted in his own seat and if Connor had learned anything about human ticks and cues, judging from the way his jaw tightened, he dreamed of nothing more than gripping Agent Perkins by his pristine lapels and throwing him out of the station. Connor was all onboard with that idea, but the preconstructions proved any escalation to be detrimental to the Lieutenant’s career and Connor’s life. Should the human lose his temper, Connor would do  _ everything _ to protect him, which would lead to classifying him as aggressive and dangerous and to prompt deactivation.

And even if he wouldn’t be immediately destroyed, he would be recalled back to CyberLife. Back to the boring white room and all the programmers who hurt him, but gave no affection to balance the pain.

So he subdued his shivers and just put a steady, firm hand on the Lieutenant’s shoulder, letting him know that he should be careful. Hank’s grip loosened a tiny bit, so it seemed to have worked. The android turned his head to the Agent, raising his hand as if asking for permission to speak.

The human looked at him with a mix of bewilderment and repulsion, but didn’t say anything, so Connor took it as an invitation to speak. “I trust that despite what my owner said, you have acquainted yourself with our findings on the case and know that I gathered some interesting information on the scene in Capitol Park two days ago. Rest assured, Special Agent, my owner would never treat the investigation lightly, and thus he did everything so that the data would be processed and ready to utilize in time unaffected by his  sick leave yesterday.”

Special Agent opened his mouth to retort, but ultimately decided to remain silent, changing the angle in which he was scowling at Connor. The android could feel his stress level skyrocket, but he made sure not to show it, knowing that it would only have served to encourage the human to pry on him.

“May I use your projector, Captain?” Connor asked, making a point out of addressing Jeffrey Fowler rather than the FBI Agent, who acted like he owned the place, which rubbed Connor the wrong way and probably not only him. The Captain nodded, visibly appreciative of the gesture, his gaze at Connor softening a bit.

The android turned to look at the holographic display surface on the wall behind the desk and linked to it, his eyes twitching several times in synch with yellow blinks of his LED. Images began to appear on it, swimming around to assume their places on the wall. There was a photo of the façade of the building with the banner, a close up of the digital display poles Connor had scanned, a few other devices from the same order Markus had placed from the vendor and the data Tina had  sent Connor. It was a receipt with the exact name of the shop and the quantity of every object bought by the deviants.

“I managed to locate the poles Markus and North had left behind to power the banner with their statements. It was bought from a bulk supplier from Detroit, but the vendor had yet to respond to the inquiry whether he knew that he was selling his commodity to the criminals. Something worth noting is that, even though the order was a rather small one in comparison with the deals the supplier usually makes for larger groups and clients, it was still bigger than everything the deviants had left on the scene.” Connor said, mentally lighting up the quantity of digital banners on the receipt and comparing it to the count of them found on the scene. There had been only two found in the Capitol Park, and six more around the other stores raided that night, but Markus had bought at least twenty.

Special Agent Perkins was surprisingly quiet throughout  Connor’s entire tirade. He now looked at the android, his gaze now much less narrow and more focused than hostile. “So what is that supposed to mean, according to your reasoning?”

“It means that Markus probably plans more outings such as that one. I cannot claim to fully comprehend the deviants’ behavioral patterns, but so far, Jericho’s operations were surprisingly well planned. I don’t think that Markus would buy too much equipment for no reason. And according to his previous Modus Operandi, he is likely to choose a date that  is historically significant, much as he did with his manifesto two weeks ago. The riots in which CyberLife stores were liberated are likely to have been a preparation  for a larger event.” Connor called a calendar on the wall with a blink of his eyes and with another, he outlined the dates of the deviants’ attacks.

“December second, the day of Abolition of Slavery. The night from eleventh to twelfth, a statement that wasn’t meant to be seen in the process but after. I believe that the main reason why Markus did all of that was liberating the androids, the riots were there because the opportunity arose. And finally,” Connor blinked once more, circling a final date. “December fifteenth, the Bill of Rights Day.” He dropped his gaze from the wall and trained his eyes at Special Agent Perkins. “Tomorrow.”

This caused a few murmurs among the FBI agents and Richard Perkins to look at Connor with a little suspicion. Hank jerked minutely under Connor’s hand.

“It’s a very bold statement, RK800.” Connor didn’t like Agent Perkins’ use of his model number instead of his name, but let it slide, knowing that it was still better than ‘tin-can’ or ‘plastic asshole’.

He nodded cautiously. “I know. And it’s not completely grounded, since the riots did not take place on such a date. Still, I believe that Markus is preparing something big for tomorrow. It’s at least worth taking into consideration, in case we needed  a larger number of troops to deal with the hypothetical event. At least four hundred and thirty androids have joined Markus two days ago. It’s a large group.”

Perkins hummed something, seemingly deep in thought. The silence was broken by Lieutenant Anderson’s quiet chuckle. “I told you, you’d be an idiot to get rid of him.”

The Agent narrowed his eyes at the human, but didn’t say anything, instead standing up from the chair and approaching the wall. He studied the evidence for a few minutes and finally  addressed Connor. “Android. Anything else you have found?”

At this point, Connor was positive that the FBI Agent had just forgotten his name. “No,  that’s all that’s new for now. The rest of the evidence is already classified into the folder I created.” Connor send the file path on the screen and the zipped files popped up.

“Good. I want  a copy of  the lease documents and its users’ guide on my desk by the evening.” He gestured with his head to the Captain dismissively, which made his skin darken as his face reddened in anger. “You are all dismissed. Captain, I need a few minutes to contemplate that in solitude.”

So they left the office, bizarrely alongside Jeffrey Fowler, whose teeth were gritted, but had no say against the FBI. He turned to Hank to say one more thing before finding a refuge somewhere deeper in the station. “Gotta say Hank, I came a long way since wanting to terminate the lease, ‘cause I thought Connor was overrated, but this was straight-out impressive.” He turned to Connor then. “That coffee thing was golden. Keep it up.” He smiled  in amusement at the memory and parted with them, vanishing in one of the private offices.

Hank ruffled Connor’s hair, unaware of the internal flinch and fear the android couldn’t ignore, and they went back to work. It was still early in their day, but Connor had a lot to think about.

Namely,  coming up with a way to get the paint bucket to the Lieutenant’s home without him noticing.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ha, when Hank doesn't try to overthink everything he is acting just as he should :P
> 
> I let you hate two people in the fic, Perkins and Person. (Actually, just Perkins, Person is just trying to do her job but is an idiot at the same time.) Oh, let's not forget Amanda. And the entirety of CyberLife XDD  
> Do you have any ideas what is the other thing/person Connor should be cautious about? Any thoughts? Hmmmm????


	47. Catharsis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, it's hard to make a step forward, but once you do, everything becomes so much clearer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!  
> I would like to thank you all once again for the amazing support and still reading this fic, even though we are quickly approaching the length of a regular book XDD  
> Thank you so much for 500 kudos, I don't have words to express how much it means to me. The feedback I'm getting, the reviews, the comments, it's all so nice to read and to have that interaction with you that I'm more than determined to keep getting better and better!  
> As usual with those milestones, I have yet another illustration for you 💙💙💙
> 
> Now, Trigger Warnings, but there aren't many in this chapter. Mentions of abuse, PTSD, panic attacks. Other than that it's pure fluff.

 

* * *

 

When the time came, Connor started lying.

It wasn’t easy, even without any punishments from the long gone self-checking protocols or Amanda, but Connor flinched mentally each time a lie left his lips. He was a machine and machines were not supposed to deceive their creators, he was even more aware of it after everything he had been through during the last two weeks. Connor had been doing so well with keeping himself from telling the untruth. But this time it was the only way.

When Hank’s shift ended, the human began to gather his things to prepare for going home. Connor observed him closely, but made an effort to look casual. His LED constantly wanted to slip into yellow, so Connor had to override it manually every few seconds. He couldn’t have Hank being suspicious of him.

Connor’s plan was complicated tremendously by the fact that his owner had a habit of checking if his most important possessions were in place every time he prepared himself to leave. He only ever stopped doing that when he was struggling with a hangover, but that had already been lost in the past. Now, Hank never failed to check his phone, wallet and car keys.

Connor waited patiently for him to do this and once the human was satisfied with having fulfilled his habit, the android started looking for an opportunity. The bullpen was almost empty, for which Connor was grateful. He also linked into the monitoring, short-circuiting the camera overhead them briefly so that when Hank bent down to retrieve something from the lowest drawer of his desk, Connor could steal the keys without anyone getting suspicious. The android was quick to extend his hand and slip it into Hank’s pocket, carefully grabbing his loot. They jostled quietly in the air, as the android snatched them quickly to stuff into his own pocket, but the human didn’t seem to have heard that. Connor just wished he could override his paleness as well.

Hank straightened up, seemingly unaware that his own android had just pick-pocketed him. “Con? You alright? You’re as white as a wall.”

“I’m fine, Hank.” Connor lied again, his thirium pump hammering in his chest so loud that he was sure the Lieutenant could hear that as well. He didn’t look convinced, but neither said anything, the same kind of exhaustion as in the morning returning to his face.

He looked several decades older when he asked, “Okay, Con, but… just tell me when something bad is going to happen, yeah? You can always tell me, remember.”

Connor nodded and resumed staring ahead, trying to look as natural as possible for an android. Of course, utilizing his basic programming right now probably wasn’t the most usual thing for him in particular, but stealing and lying to Hank made him so inconceivably stressed that being himself was just not possible at the moment. Connor might have been the most advanced quantum computer ever, but he was also the most emotional advanced quantum computer ever and keeping his emotions under control took a considerable amount of his processing power.

Thankfully, Hank got a clue that it was all just stressing Connor out and stopped pressing the matter as he had promised. They went out of the bullpen, moving in the direction of the car. On their way there, Connor busied himself with looping the feedback in the cameras watching them, so that they wouldn’t see what was going to happen in a few moments.

Sure enough, once they reached the car, Hank buried his hand in the pocket where the car keys had been and furrowed his brows, finding nothing. Connor waited for him to search all the other pockets, tilting his head in a faked confusion.

“Shit…” Hank muttered, realizing that he was unable to find what he was looking for. “Connor haven’t you seen my car keys? I could’ve sworn I checked that I had them…”

“No.” Connor said, thankful for his voice remaining steady for a change. “I only started paying attention after you had said that I was pale.” He knew it was an easy thing for Hank to believe. After all, humans didn’t have photographic memory and Hank was mindful of Connor’s tendency to zone out at times.

The human sighed, just as the prototype had preconstructed. “Okay… so… I think I might have left them on the desk. C’mon, you’ll help me search…”

 _No, I have other plans._ “Or maybe you dropped them on your way here? I could search the parking lot while you look for them in the station…” The success of this stage of the plan depended on Hank’s compliance and Connor could feel his stress level rising even further. But the human just shrugged.

“You might as well.” He said and turned away to go back to the precinct.

Connor crouched down, pretending that he was actually trying to find something, until Hank vanished behind the corner. The android stilled, looking after his owner for several more seconds and then stood up hurriedly, quickly circling the car to reach under the back right tire. He couldn’t help a relieved smile as his fingers brushed the supplies Chris had bought. Connor didn’t doubt in the human’s friendship, but to the last moment, he couldn’t wholly believe that someone could actually do something for him just because he had asked.

The android had no time to lose, putting the bucket and paint tray under Hank’s chair, fastening them there with Sumo’s blanket knocking around the floor. The bundle was so small that it was highly unlikely to be spotted by the human. Connor allowed himself a small smile again, seeing as his plan was coming together easily. He moved to sit in the passenger seat and waited two more minutes before sending a message to Hank’s phone, lying that he had found the keys.

“Uh… Thanks, Con. I gotta check my pockets for holes, I guess…” The human said as he entered the car after a few minutes. Despite Connor’s paleness at his owner thanking him for finding the object he had stolen earlier, the android managed to avoid any major let-outs.

As they were driving towards home again, Connor thought over the next stage of his plan, participating absentmindedly in the small talk Hank had attempted to lead with him. The human seemed worried at Connor’s lack of true engagement in it, so the android made an effort to appear more present in reality to make him less suspicious. His owner smiled brightly, seeing that Connor livened up a bit, and some of the tiredness vanished from his face again.

Connor was smiling for his owner’s sake, but internally, he was more worried than ever. Hank, who had every right to do whatever he wanted with Connor, was dragging the punishment on, not allowing the android to relax. The hardest blows had yet to land, and Connor was aware that they would have been so much worse if Hank had uncovered the damage in the garage. And if the intrigue with the paint were to be uncovered…

Connor feared that with the theft of the keys, he had crossed the point of no return. It didn’t matter that he had given them to Hank mere minutes later, or that he had taken someone else’s property in the past, whether it had been a scalpel or a bullet from the revolver. He was currently in the process of being disciplined and was still digging himself deeper by doing things like that... Moreover, keeping  them a secret from the man was so much worse than any of Connor’s previous thefts.

Because he had stolen before either to aid his superiors in the punishments or to keep Hank alive. Never to save himself from the entirety of the pain he deserved.

Connor flinched at that thought and made an effort to cover that from Hank, only spiraling deeper into the vicious cycle of self-loathing. The human noticed and his gaze darkened once more.

“Con, you’re hiding something, aren’t you?”

The android could feel his skin crawl, quite literally since when his stress level was too high, he’d lose control over the program projecting the nanoparticles onto his chassis, leaving a deficient projection that couldn't completely mask the white plates of his chassis. “N-no. ‘M not.” Lying even more to cover his previous lies was _so hard_.

Hank sighed tiredly. “Kid, I… I’m not asking ‘cause I need to know. Or want to. It’s your business, but… I’m just worried, okay? I’m only trying to… see if you’re safe.”

Connor shifted his gaze at the human hesitantly. Was he? He certainly didn’t feel so, but that was nothing new. He only ever felt safe when he was unaware of the danger out there. Right now Connor held no illusions, there was no refuge for him anywhere.

“I am.” He only said.

Hank didn’t look convinced, but he chose not to dwell. Connor was thankful for that.

When they reached the house, Connor started looking for an opportunity again. The paint needed to be recovered from the car as soon as possible. According to Connor’s estimates, the bucket had already been out in the cold for at least two hours, and even though acrylic paint had a lower freezing temperature than water, the android would rather avoid taking chances with it. He wanted to fix the wall as well as possible.

He had been thinking about it the entire walk with Sumo, begging the fate for an opportunity, even ignoring the fact that the very concept of fate was illogical and should never have been contemplated by a machine.

Regardless of whether destiny existed or not, Connor was granted a chance as they were returning. Sumo had found a muddy puddle melted in the snow by salt from the streets and jumped in happily, covering his paws and belly in brown gunge, earning a disgusted ‘ewww’ from Hank.

“Jesus, Sumo…” The human sighed, extracting the dog from the puddle. “You’re not gonna sleep in either of our beds tonight.”

The dog whined like he actually understood what had been said, looking at Connor as if he expected the android to defend him from the unreasonable penalty.

“M-maybe we can just wash him?” Connor said quietly, thinking that Sumo was pushing his luck, given that Hank could as well hit him for having gotten himself dirty. On more than one occasion, the prototype would have chosen to be unable to sleep in a bed instead of being punished in any other way. But it didn’t matter, Connor was not relevant here and if Sumo wanted him to help him avoid the punishment, so be it. Connor was willing to do anything for the dog.

“That’s not a bad idea, though you gotta know that it’s not easy to wash a dog who hates water and weighs around 220 pounds…” Hank said, tugging on Sumo’s leash much more delicately than Connor had expected.

The android bit his lip thoughtfully. “That’s more than twice as much as me. But-“

“Woah, really?” Hank raised his brows. “Well… I suppose it makes sense, you’re quite light. But still, that’s impressive. I need to try that thirium diet…” He chuckled quietly, turning away to head back home. “That was a joke by the way, I bet that shit is disgusting.”

“It’s not that bad… though it’s nothing compared to ketchup…” Connor kept Hank talking, in hopes of tearing his attention away from how dirty Sumo was. It seemed to have worked, as the human looked at him with a thoughtful gleam in his eyes, smiling mysteriously. Maybe he would just forget to punish the animal or at least do it less harshly if he had been in a good mood. Despite the fact that Connor knew now that pain was just an inseparable part of being loved, he couldn’t stand the thought of Sumo having to suffer through it, even if he had jumped into the puddle.

Connor briefly considered volunteering himself for the pain instead of the dog, but he was not sure whether it worked like that. After all, what could a machine know about love? _But,_ Connor thought, _maybe the retribution could be avoided at all?_

“Umm... Hank?” He decided to ask finally. “If Sumo was washed, would you still punish him?”

“You mean the beds?” The human asked softly. “No. I know that you like sleeping with him, if we wash that dirty oaf, I see no point in chastising him…”

“Okay…” Connor smiled softly, scratching the dog behind his ear. He was glad that there was a way to save Sumo, and also… it gave him hope with the wall too. Hank would probably notice some changes later, but maybe, if it was fixed,  he wouldn’t punish Connor harder after all?

“Uh…” Hank grumbled as they walked through the door. “Gotta keep him in the bathroom, the house is dirty enough already. Can you fetch me his shampoo from the garage? I have no idea where it is and your fancy scanners will probably find it in seconds. I’ll make sure he doesn’t wander off and bury himself in your bedding…”

“Yes!” Connor said, maybe a little too enthusiastically not to show that this opportunity was far more perfect than he had anticipated. “I’ll be back in a minute!”

“Uh, oka-“ Hank’s voice was cut off by Connor closing the door to the bathroom.

The android had to make a slight detour on his way to the garage and he prayed that Sumo would keep their owner occupied for long enough for him not to notice. Connor leaped towards the front door, making sure not to be too loud. He stole the car keys again and quickly ran towards the driveway, leaving the door barely cracked, so that the Lieutenant would have thought it was closed if he had peeked outside the bathroom after all.

Connor quickly extracted the paint bucket and other supplies from the car, returning to the house as fast as he could. To his relief, the bathroom door was still closed. Connor hurried to the garage, having trouble keeping himself on his legs as he saw that the tarpaulin had fallen down again. If Hank had decided to look for the shampoo himself, he would have undoubtedly noticed the damage Connor had done.

The android tucked the painting utensils behind a large pile of cardboard boxes and went on to follow his owner’s order. There were a lot of various bottles, opened and unopened, both with original labels and with Hank’s own description on them. Connor quickly spotted a large container with a golden retriever on it, described as dog shampoo.

The bottle was unopened so Connor didn’t feel the need to check for sure that it was indeed shampoo inside and not any other fluid, in case Hank had repurposed the container, but he did it anyway when he came back to the bathroom, even if it was irrational... He couldn’t risk Sumo’s safety.

Hank had a hard time suppressing laughter at Connor’s disgusted face after tasting the shampoo. “Eh, I should have known you wouldn’t be able to resist. Is this better than thirium too?”

“No, it’s definitely worse than it.” Connor kept the bottle away from himself, as if it could help his systems rinse the bitter taste faster. “But I had to check if it was safe.”

“By putting it into your mouth.” Hank chuckled, working on setting the temperature of the water to be ideal. “Veeery smart.”

“It’s just how my forensic lab works.” Connor pouted, resisting an urge to smirk. He still wasn’t comfortable joking around Hank, knowing that he wasn’t done disciplining the android.

“Yeah, I know… C’mon, let’s brush that grumbler clean and get him into the bathtub…”

Sumo was intelligent enough to know exactly what was happening and he was sitting grumpily in the corner next to the loads of fluffy fur they had extracted from him with a brush, gazing forlornly in the direction of the locked doors. Connor scratched him behind the left ear to cheer him up, before clipping a rope leash to his collar. “Sumo, you need to be cleaned. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.”

Hank smiled briefly at that and Connor wondered if the Lieutenant remembered that the android had said exactly the same words before throwing him under the shower before the Eden Club investigation. He had been significantly intoxicated, but seemingly not enough to have been incomprehensible. “So, it’s a habit for you I see. Getting Andersons to wash against their will.”

This time Connor had no doubts that it was an endearing comment instead of a complaint. He smiled softly despite himself.

Sumo proved to be far less of a troublemaker than Hank had warned. The dog had objections to coming into the bathtub and flinched briefly at the first gentle touch of the water on his back, but as soon as he realized that it was comfortably warm and neither the human not the android were affected by his complaints, he resigned himself to just standing still, letting them rub shampoo into his abundant fur... only to wait for a good moment to strike.

Several escape plans he had come up with were quickly stopped by Connor’s fast and efficient reactions. Despite being less than half of the dog’s weight, the difference further amplified by the water trapped in Sumo’s fur, Connor was significantly stronger than the animal. Sumo looked at him as if he had betrayed his trust after the third attempt of jumping out of the bathtub had been balked. But he soon forgot about any brabbles, as he was being scratched all over his back and head while Hank worked to rinse the shampoo off him. He looked like he had come to the conclusion that the bath wasn’t so bad once there was someone petting him beside the person dousing him with water.

Of course he had to shake it off as soon as they lost their vigilance. Connor laughed at the spray of water, before realizing that it probably wasn’t enjoyable for Hank and could possibly inflict further punishment on the dog, but to his relief, the human smiled as well. They rubbed Sumo as dry as possible with a fluffy towel and Hank ordered Connor again to search for a blowing space heater and clean the floor in the living room. The android was quick to comply, and soon enough, Sumo was laying on the carpet with a content expression on his muzzle, presenting his wet belly to dry in the stream of warm air blowing at him from afar.

Connor sat beside him, running his hands through the fur softer and lighter than ever, listening to steady the breaths of the animal and feeling his chest heave under his fingers. He smiled and purred, the sound drowning in the steady hum of the heater. The punishment was yet to come, but Connor was glad that Sumo had been able to avoid his part. The prototype’s own deeds, apart from the wall, weren’t as easily fixable, but the android decided to cherish the moment for now.

 

* * *

 

Hank cracked the door open as quietly as he could, just barely enough to peek through to see the couch. He couldn’t make anything out too well in the dark of the living room, but in the weak sliver of light from his bedside lamp, he saw a bundle of comforters and duvets vaguely in the shape of a human, and the Saint Bernard was sprawled across it. The pulsing white glow of an LED was nowhere to be seen, but Connor could as well have been sleeping on his right side.

Hank decided not to come any closer, so as not to wake the android up. He was certain that Connor was a light sleeper as well, and even though he was less anxious around them than anyone else, Hank couldn’t take risks. He left the door just barely cracked and moved further into his bedroom, still wanting to be able to hear if the android stirred, but having to muffle his own voice. He needed more advice.

It was never comfortable for him to call anyone, especially celebrities he shouldn’t normally have been allowed to talk to, later than 10 PM, and right now, it was well past midnight. Hank recalled what the painter had told him and pressed ‘call’. Even though the artist was fine with having late night conversations, the Lieutenant still wasn’t convinced.

“Uh, it’s me again…” Hank said barely above a whisper. “ ‘M sorry it’s late… I can’t have Con unsupervised and I would rather he didn’t hear any of this…”

“Hank, it’s fine.” Carl’s voice was gentle, but somewhat worried. He probably realized that something bad had happened, if Hank was calling again so soon and so late. “I told you that artists are nocturnal animals, at least most of them. I am no exception.”

“Yeah, okay…”Hank sighed, letting go of that particular worry. It was a drop in the ocean. “I… I need help again. The visit didn’t go too well…”

Carl was quiet for a few moments. “Has she realized? Are you in danger?” He finally asked even quieter.

“No… I don’t think so. It’s just… Connor interpreted it wrong. I d-don’t even know…” Hank’s voice broke as he was saying that. “He went out of the office and didn’t say a word to me until night. I couldn’t stand it and… I cried, begging him to say at least one word, anything. H-he… He told me that I was his owner and I could do anything I wanted to him…” It was hard to even think about it. Hank didn’t see himself as Connor’s owner. He strived to be someone entirely different for the prototype.

Carl murmured something, seemingly deep in thought. There was an audible exhale before he answered again. “Hank, you need to remember that Connor is an android and his… childhood, so to speak, was different from ours. Markus would never tell me anything like that, but that’s because he was developed by Elijah, without CyberLife’s involvement. And Elijah had always been fascinated in deism, but never in totalitarianism. I cannot diagnose him myself, as I have already said, I am no psychologist, but even as I expect that he has a god complex, I don’t think he tries to be too powerful of a god. He has never conditioned Markus to think how he wanted him to, but Connor… may be an entirely different story.”

Hank ran his hand through his hair in despondence. He was aware that Connor’s reasoning was contorted by what CyberLife had made him to believe, but at least had hoped that Carl would have any experience with dealing with such traumatized androids. It seemed that Markus had had a much happier development phase than his fellow RK…

The Lieutenant sniffled and picked himself up figuratively. He hadn’t recounted the whole story, and maybe the old artist could catch on something else. Anything that could help Hank understand Connor better…. “I don’t get it after that, he hugged me, even though he never does that, but I can see that he is touch-starved all the time… He refuses to communicate, he just said that he was tired and almost immediately fell asleep…”

He could hear Carl sigh deeply on the other side. “… Markus had done things like that a few times. Leo used to pull his leg all the time, messing with his canaries or doing equally as rude of things before he moved out. Markus would yell at him, but he couldn’t do anything. Leo used to be too full of himself to listen to an android, even if Markus was wiser than him at the time. Markus would just paint to let it out, or he’d sleep off the anger at times when he was too enraged to speak with me about it. I bet that those are ways for androids to cope with feelings that are just too much for them…”

“So, you’re saying that he was just too overwhelmed to function?” Hank asked hesitantly. It didn’t look too well in his eyes.

“Probably, yes.” A long period of silence followed before the painter spoke up hesitantly again. “I… don’t want to worry you unnecessarily… but I guess that it is better than not warning you and having you or Connor suffer…”

“Tell me.” Hank demanded instantly. He would take being a bundle of nerves over allowing Connor to get hurt any time.

“It occurs to me that deviants are far less used to extreme stress than humans. Forgive me that I’m using that word, if you still refuse to believe that Connor is one. It’s just for brevity. But… The point I’m trying to make is that they are not very well… prepared to handle fear or anger. Even as Markus has been built and programmed to mimic a human perfectly, emotions included, I could see that sometimes it was hard for him to comprehend them. I’d always given him space back then, but made sure that he didn’t feel abandoned either. Not pushing him to do anything, just being at his side always did the trick. But…” He paused briefly, and when his voice returned, it was much darker. “But it’s not like that for a lot of other deviants. Markus had me, and I’ve always been considerate enough to care about him. But I saw how desperate he was to escape each time it happened. I’ve allowed him to slip out gently, mulling it all over in his sleep. But I also saw what CyberLife had published in the internet, as a warning to all android owners. That deviants who can’t find comfort tend to self-destruct when they feel like they can’t handle it anymore.”

Hank’s mouth ran dry. He sat slowly on his bed, feeling as though he could tumble to the floor, his weak knees giving out under him. “Y-you say that… That he could have… k-killed himself?”

“It’s just a theory of mine, I could be wrong. But I whole-heartedly believe that it is important to handle moments like that gently. Support him, never press further. If an android wants to escape, they will escape no matter what. If they are too frightened to sleep, or find themselves in immediate danger, they will attempt to deactivate themselves in any other way possible. Just be careful and remember that…”

Hank sighed deeply, running his hand through his hair. “Uh… At least I stuck to that instinctively yesterday. I stayed with him the whole night, holding his hand. He seemed more normal in the morning, but… I can see that something is still not okay with him.”

Carl hummed briefly, but it was less heavy-hearted this time. “I don’t think it’s that surprising. I don’t know him personally, but from what you are saying, it’s almost impossible for Connor not to be affected by what he has been through. But I also think that he couldn’t have landed better. You are the best father he could ever ask for.”

Hank felt a warm fuzziness unfurl in his chest at that, but still had doubts. “Yeah… a depressed alcoholic in therapy. I think he deserved better…”

“Do not think about yourself like that. Your addictions and illnesses do not define who you are. How compassionate you are, how you treat others - that does. And it’s not easy to find a person as determined to help another being as you.”

“I…” Hank’s mouth inadvertently morphed into a small smile. “…Thank you. For everything.”

“Always.” It was weird how Hank could almost feel the other man lighten up. “Take care. And let me know how it’s developing. If Connor reacts like that, I bet that he really trusts you, but something keeps him from sharing the worst things. Don’t let him feel alone and I’m sure he will open up eventually.”

Hank said his goodbye and let the hand with the phone fall to his lap gently. Talking with Carl always made him feel safer, the experience the old painter had with his own son was helping him a lot. He felt like he was completely in the dark with Connor and navigating his reactions, especially since the android refused to talk to him about what was going on in his head. It helped to know that the other android had been through at least some things like that too. The thought that Markus was a deviant and so far, every piece of information Carl had given him fit both RKs was still somewhat uncomfortable for Hank, but… as long as the advice helped Connor, the Lieutenant was more than happy to ignore anything potentially disturbing about his son’s software stability.

Hank sighed and put his phone back on the bedside table, hearing the quiet clicking of Sumo’s paws on the floor. He froze for a few seconds, trying to find out if the dog had woken the android up as he had jumped off of him. Strangely enough, he heard nothing from the couch, but Hank was aware that his and Sumo’s proximity was different from any other person’s. Connor could be woken quite easily by anyone so much as entering a diameter of two meters around him, but he seemed to know that neither the Lieutenant nor the dog posed any danger for him. Hank could at times have picked Connor up and carried him around without waking him up if he was gentle, and the android seemed to be totally unbothered by a 220 pound dog wriggling on top of him while sleeping.

The Lieutenant walked up to the door to close it quietly, but before he could, there was a tell-tale pause in Sumo’s steps, the last few ones hesitant enough to signify that he had some aberrant intent. Hank peeked his head out of the room to see what the animal was up to and he was greeted by the magnificent view of a giant of a dog standing on his back paws and jumping on the garage door to open it. Hank gritted his teeth, both at the horrible noise that on the other hand was sure to wake the android up, and in frustration, seeing the dog do the exact thing he had asked him to avoid.

But the animal seemed to pay him no mind as he assaulted the door handle and threw it open, stepping into the garage as if Hank wasn’t right behind him. The human opened his mouth to tell the animal off, but before he could draw a sound… a scared voice spoke up from inside the garage, startling the human.

“S-Sumo, no! No, no, no, nononono! Hank will wake up!” Connor’s whisper rang through the room and the human raised his eyebrow entering the corridor.

The android shuffled in the garage, trying to reach the door quickly but without being too loud. When he saw Hank, he froze so instantly that the human was uncannily reminded of his robotic origins. His LED dropped to swirling red and intensified, as if calling for help.

“H-Hank…” Connor said so quietly and softly that Cole flashed in front of his eyes again, even though the boy used to call him with a different word. “I c-could… exp-plain…”

The android was holding a paint roller and his sleeves were pulled up to the elbows to protect them from getting dirty. He even pulled his skin back on both of his arms, showing white and grey plastic riddled with tiny numbers and codes along the splices. What he didn’t think about, however, was protecting his other clothes and the CyberLife-issued jeans and shoes were now sporting several white spots where the paint had dripped on them.

“I’m s-so sorry…” Connor’s breath hitched ad he brought the roller closer to himself, cowering like a frightened animal. His voice was wavy and high-pitched, his eyes as round as the crimson circle on his forehead. “I w-wanted to fix it… I’m s…. H-Hank, please don’t be angry…”

“Con, hey, shh, why would I be angry? Why do you have a paint-“ He stopped, seeing the reason. It was actually hard not to notice it, even in the weak light of a single old glow tube.

The long wall on the other side of the room was covered in myriads of hasty scribbles that seemed to bleed out of a piece of plasterboard he had thrown in the corner and forgotten about after renovating the house several years back. All of them were done in shaky, black lines, standing boldly against the white background. There were random words there, senseless statements, code lines, long rows of numbers, some binary shit, even some… drawings. Several places were already covered in paint as Connor had tried to conceal the writings, the black ink peeking out from underneath just enough to signify that it was there, but not legible.

Hank slowly turned his gaze at the panicking android, whose LED was now blinking rapidly, the skin on his face so sheer that the human could see the lines of his plating and serial number on his cheekbones, the darker triangle and barcode on his forehead. His hands were shaking so hard that he dropped the paint roller, further staining his jeans and the floor white.

“Connor, is it yours?” Hank asked quietly, making an effort to look as unthreatening as possible. “It’s okay, I’m not angry… Please, calm down, I promise you, everything is fine…”

He outstretched his hand slowly, attempting to grab Connor’s wrist gently, to coax him into coming closer, but the android lunged backwards, just like he had done back on Capitol Park Plaza. He scrambled into a corner and drew his knees up to his chest, heaving harshly, his LED now blinking so rapidly that it was almost steady.

Hank covered his mouth with his hand, further terrified as Connor flinched at the movement, as if he had expected a hit, shaking like a panicked victim of abuse. _Jesus fucking Christ…_

“I’m sorry I’ms-s sorry I’m ssorry, Ic-can’t be sorry, Imsorry, please don’t hurt m-me…” Connor whined weakly, his voice breaking. “I k-know that I deserve it, b-but please, I d-didn’t w-want t-to… I’m s-sorry Hank, please, pl-lease d-don’t h-hit me too h-hard…” Hank felt his heart crack as he saw tears in the android’s eyes. He realized that he had never seen Connor cry before.

“Oh my God…” Hank whispered softly, resisting the urge to run to him and draw him into a tight hug. That definitely wouldn’t have helped Connor right now, since he had problems with Hank even trying to touch his hand. Instead, he crouched down to be at Connor’s level, looking into his eyes with gentle affection.

“H-hey, Con… It’s fine. I’m not gonna hit you, I would never do that…” _Jesus, where did he get that from?! Even drunk outta my mind I’ve never hit him intentionally… And now I’m not even squiffy…_ “Hey, please look at me. Son, shake that off. You are safe.”

Connor was now threading his fingers into his hair, leaving white swipes on his forehead and in his brown tufts. Hank’s soft voice seemed to reach him, though. He furrowed his brows as if confused, but his eyes remained closed shut. Hank kept talking softly, trying to peel him away from his episode.

“Connor, it’s okay, I really don’t care about the wall. I would never hit you, I promise, you’re safe here. I will never let anyone hurt you. Look, you already started painting, I can help you if you don’t want to have it here, we can paint over it and all of your… scribbles… will be gone…” He cast a brief look at the writings. The words he could make out were disturbing, but not nearly as much as the drawings of humans, seemingly in negative. Their eye sockets were white, cheeks and forehead grey and clothes were pure black, hastily scrawled on them as anything here. Hank could make out Kerring’s glasses on the face of the shortest human. He felt a new wave of hatred towards the programmer.

The android cracked his eyes open, looking at Hank warily. The human smiled, genuinely glad to see Connor less panicked than before. He had no doubts that they weren’t out of the woods just yet, but seeing any progress was good enough. “See? It’s fine, Con. I love you, I would never hit you. Never.”

But to his surprise, it made Connor frown in distress. “Why?! J-just do it already! I c-can’t stand it anymore!” He burst into sobs, clasping a hand over his mouth and squeezing his eyes shut, visibly trying to stay still, but his cries kept shaking his frame, as if he was no longer able to contain his emotions. Hank felt as though he was looking at a child genuinely trying to calm down, but broken and scared so much that his body rebelled against him.

And what the android had just said…

“Connor…” Hank started even quieter, desperate to get it out of the frantic android. “Why do you _want_ me to hit you?”

“I d-don’t!” Connor cried nearly out of his breath. “I d-don’t want to be h-hit… But I k-know that you’re still… not finished. Just… do it already. I d-don’t want to… Just p-punish me already. I can’t… No l-longer…” He hiccupped and Hank briefly wondered if there was any reason for androids to do so. He thought that maybe it was for realism’s sake, but… Connor wasn’t the most convincing human imitation with his skin so sheer that it was almost non-existent on his face, blue-rimmed eyes, and breaking down on the floor while begging to be _beaten already_.

Hank bit his lip, cursing every single soul that made Connor expect a punishment and await it, as if it was the only way to pay for his failures. “Con, what would I want to punish you for? You keep apologizing, but I have no idea what for. Please, tell me…”

The human half-expected him to close off again, but instead, the android furrowed his brows as if Hank had asked something obvious. “I s-scared you with my driving. And, and didn’t defend myself… from the officers…”

Hank sighed softly, coming just a little bit closer to the cowering android. “Con, I told you I was not angry at you. And I’m still not. Everything is fine.”

“B-but… I climbed the wall right after you had told me not to do dangerous things…” Connor’s voice was quiet and broken. Hank’s heart felt the same.

“I’m paranoid from time to time, I’d rather you were wrapped in a comforter and laying in a secure vault to avoid anything happening to you, but I know that you are tougher than you look… Besides, you did that to look for clues, not to get under my skin.” Hank offered him a loving smile again. “And you managed to shut Perkins’ mouth with them too, I could never be angry about that…”

“And… and the wall? I… bed-daubed it an-and s-stole your keys to get the paint h-home without you noticing… I lied t-to you…”

Hank sighed, noting that Cole had been getting conscience pangs each time he had deceived his parents too. “I already said that I don’t give a shit about the wall, it’s yours if you wanna write on it. I can even give you the entire garage for moments when you feel that you need to vent. And those keys… You literally gave them back three minutes later. It’s hardly an offence. I completely understand that you were lying, you were scared and didn’t want me to find out. It was unnecessary in the first place, but you didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not angry, I promise.”

Connor buried his face into his hands for a few moments, seemingly out of arguments. His LED, still visible above his knees dropped to yellow twice before he asked, still not raising his head. “B-but… The therapist… N-no, you are punishing me. She was a p-part of it, I know. Am-manda was right…” Connor took a long breath, steadying himself, but to no avail as at the end of the exhale, he sobbed again, shivering and shedding more tears, seemingly despite himself.

“Con, what are you talking about, kid? What was she right about, how am I punishing you?” Hank was genuinely scared. He had tried so hard to help Connor, why was the prototype reacting like that? Did he take the talk with Dr. Chapman as a punishment? Hank desperately wanted to comfort the android, but he tensed suddenly as he realized how close the human was, so the Lieutenant decided to keep his distance.

“I kn… Mmmm…” Connor hummed inaudibly, shaken by the force of his sobs. “Sh-she told m-me… And she was r-right. Y-you lied to me and… You’re trying t-to steal me. F-from her… T-tear away. Keep f-for yourself. Sh-she is my handler and… and you want t-to make me disobey…”

 _Oh. That is gonna be difficult to get around_ . Hank looked at Connor with a new dose of worry. _Stockholm syndrome at its finest_ _,_ _and I’m not known for dealing with any mental conditions well…_

If Connor was wary of him because he knew that Hank was trying to help him by alienating him from people who were manipulating and hurting him… And because he was interpreting the Lieutenant’s attempts at helping him as trying to take away people who were important to him… Well, Hank had a problem. _He is imprinted on that bitch after all…_

“Connor, I’m not trying to steal you.” He eventually decided to keep as close to the truth as possible, but omit certain facts not to let Connor misunderstand them. “I just want you to be happy.”

“ ‘M happy w-with Amanda.” Connor whispered, curling into a tight ball. Hank seriously doubted in his words, given that he had expected to be harmed for hardly even doing anything wrong, and that he had asked not that he would have been left alone, but that Hank wouldn’t have hit him _too hard_.

“Connor… I don’t know…” He started, but the android had other ideas.

“I am, I am, I am, I am, she cares about me, s-she does so much f-for me and all I give her in return is disappointment…” He wailed again, large tears sliding down his face again. The only android Hank had seen in a state even remotely similar to this was the HK400 from the attic of Carlos Ortiz. The first deviant they had ever caught.

“Con, all I know is that you are not disappointing me. I don’t know Amanda, and… Okay you’re right, maybe I judged her unfairly…” _Fucking bitch, she deserves to rot in cybernetic hell._ “Maybe she is not that bad. I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions. I shouldn’t judge her without knowing the full picture…” _I will learn how to program shit just to write something that would make her suffer._ “I’m sorry you thought I tried to take you away from her, maybe I should have been more delicate with that. I didn’t know that it was distressing for you. I don’t want to make you afraid… I really just want you to be happy…” Hank said softly, outstretching his hand as he saw that Connor relaxed a bit.

The android eyed him warily his LED was cycling slower, still red, but breaking into yellow every now and then. He didn’t flinch anymore at Hank’s gestured in his direction, but there was a visible frown on his face all the time.

“I… I d-don’t understand…” He said finally, in a quiet, hesitant voice. “I just… I d-don’t know what is happening…”

“Well, that makes two of us.” Hank said softly, with a gentle, reassuring smile. “Can you tell me what doesn’t make sense so that we could figure it out?”

Connor sighed deeply and Hank could tell that he was entering the initial phase of exhaustion Carl was talking about, but still he looked too frantic and too shaken to be able to relax in any way. The android glared at Hank with suspicion again and said in an even quieter voice. “S-so… You don’t want to take me away?”

Hank gritted his teeth. He didn’t want to lie to the android or manipulate him. Connor had enough of brainwashing already. “I do want to, because I would like to give you happiness. But I am not going to do anything _you_ are not on board with. I’m not going to steal you. If you want to stay with Amanda, no one is forcing you to abandon her.” _One day, you will see that she is nothing but evil, one day, I promise that you will be okay. One day, you will be free from her._

Connor nodded gently but then furrowed his brows again. “B-but she said so… she can’t be wrong.”

“Con, everyone is wrong from time to time. Even Amanda.” Hank smiled gently. “Besides, she was trying to predict my motives and I am a human, it is our nature to be unpredictable.”

But Connor shook his head. “N-no, you are lying. Humans are never wrong and she isn’t too.”

“Who told you that bullshit? Humans are probably the most flawed species out there. We do amazing things, yes, but it only means that when we fail, we fail _hard_ as well.” Hank shifted even closer and to his surprise and relief, Connor extended his hand and when Hank grabbed it gently, he held onto the human’s fingers with a desperate determination. “Look at me. I have been destroying my life willingly for three years before you came to me and opened my eyes. Doesn’t that sound like a mistake to you? Or… the shit I’ve done to you… I was treating you horribly just because you were different from me. And then… That night… It’s going to h-haunt till the end of my life…”

But Connor smiled through his tears at that, nearly startling Hank. “I k-know that it wasn’t a mistake, but… It’s okay. I w-was… I’m sorry that I couldn’t accept it then, a-and forced you to lie. I know you disciplined me because you care about m-me. I’m n-not mad about it. I d-deserved to be shouted at and now I k-know t-that. But I didn’t then, and y-you had to do s-so much not to have me… r-run away.  I’m s-sorry…” He started crying again and the grip on Hank’s fingers intensified.

The Lieutenant was shocked, chilled to the bone hearing that. He hoped that he just didn’t understand what the android was trying to say. _What the fuck? He is apologizing for being afraid of me after I’ve done… that… to him?!_

“Connor…” The human turned a serious eye on the prototype, carefully trying to separate different emotions on his face, struggling to make sense of his skewed logic. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I… I k-know that you care about me. It’s ok-kay that you discipline me at times.” He paused to furrow his brows, now visibly exhausted. “Why are you asking m-me, when you kn-know more about love than I do?…”

 _Jesus Christ_. Hank could feel tears welling in his own eyes as he realized that Connor associated violence and pain with affection. “S-son, that’s not how it works. When you love someone, you do everything to protect them, to make them happy. Even… Even if there are quarrels from time to time… they should never end in either side suffering so much. And… beating anyone is n-not… it’s not love. Con, I know that you would listen to me if I just asked you not to do certain things… Pain is not a good communication measure.”

Connor sniffled and looked at Hank, bewildered. “B-but… W-when you were angry at me for threatening Alice… After you told me you didn’t love me anymore, I suffered.”

“I k-know, Con…” Hank shifted closer, taking the other android’s hand into his. Connor didn’t object. His own tears stained the floor, joining the prototype’s. “And I’m so fucking sorry about that. I told you, it was my biggest mistake yet, alongside maybe deciding to take that trip with Cole three years ago…” His voice broke and Hank needed several minutes to collect himself again, but Connor waited patiently. “I never wanted to h-hurt you. I would never have done that if I hadn’t been drunk. What I did then, Con… It wasn’t coming from a place of love. I was angry, blinded by the alcohol, I took out my own problems on you. It’s not the way to treat someone you love, I swear… I’m s-so sorry…” He shook his head, fighting the pain in his heart at the memory of that night and knowledge how strongly Connor had been affected by it.

The android was observing him throughout the rant warily, his LED circling attentive yellow. When Hank was finished talking, Connor dropped his gaze to the ground, rearranging his grip on both of Hank’s hands. The human noticed that his lip began to tremble as he said, “N-no… Amanda cares about me… and… she m-makes me s-suffer when I fail…”

“Connor, I will be frank with you. Humans can’t exactly control their preferences. I don’t like anyone who deals you pain, so I don’t like Amanda, I just don’t. And I don’t like her methods. It doesn’t mean that I will force you to leave her… but I don’t agree with how she treats you.”

The LED on Connor’s temple circled gradually darker, slowly dropping to red. When it settled on bright crimson, he suddenly let go of Hank’s hands, his eyes wide and frantic before he pressed them shut, gripping his hair in despair.

“Noooooo, it doesn’t make sense again!” He wailed, tugging on the brown strands so hard that Hank could see them shimmer bright blue in between his fingers, as the nanofibers simulating his hair tore and severed, dropping to the floor as transparent strands. Hank quickly reached for Connor’s wrists, gently gripping them and guiding them away from his head.

“Hey, hey, hey, none of that, Con. You’re okay, that’s not necessary. Here, grip your coin instead.” Hank reached to Connor’s pocket and drew the object out of it, pressing it into Connor’s tightly clenched fist. The android’s fingers relaxed as if Hank had inserted a key into a lock, instantly rolling the quarter across his fingers.

“We can figure out anything you don’t understand together, yeah? That’s how investigations work. We share clues and reach conclusions collectively.” It seemed to have finally convinced Connor, who exhaled slowly, slumping forward so much that he touched Hank’s chest with his forehead.

The human could see the circle on his partner’s temple returning to yellow and circling slower. Connor looked dazed as he twisted a bit to look at Hank, asking in a soft voice. “You promise you are not going to steal me?”

“Yeah. If you don’t agree to that, never. I will not do anything to take you away from CyberLife if you don’t want to. I swear on Cole’s grave.” Hank ran his hands through Connor’s jagged hair, massaging his scalp gently.

Connor shifted again, and this time he wrapped his hands around Hank’s torso, clinging to him like a child. His grip was tight, but Hank could feel that the android was on the verge of exhaustion. Connor was trembling like a leaf, desperately grabbing the human’s shirt in tight fists. After a few peaceful seconds, the first sob ripped from his throat, quickly followed by many more.

Hank returned the hug immediately, feeling that it was somehow different than any of those before. It wasn’t hesitant, calculated, withheld. Connor was giving all of himself into it, making the embrace real, desperate and emotional. There had been only one hug they had shared that had felt _that_ real. The one after their reunion on the DPD’s parking lot.

“Shh, it’s okay… You are fine, son. Everything will be all right…” Hank murmured reassuringly, rubbing Connor’s back in slow circles. The android was still crying uncontrollably, but his sobs were becoming quieter, his arms slackening around Hank. The human hummed softly, trying to calm the machine down.

“What are your battery levels?” He asked softly, rocking back and forth, feeling Connor gradually relax in his embrace.

“S-sev… sevent-ty eigh… t. P-perc…cent…” The prototype managed finally, after a few failed attempts disrupted by whimpers and soundless sobs.

“Do you wanna sleep in my bed tonight?” Hank decided that it was enough for Connor not to lay on his fancy charging mat once. The android nodded weakly and Hank picked him up easily, thanking the heavens for the fact that he weighed less than 110 pounds.

Cleaning the paint off the floor and the paint tray was going to be a lot of fun in the morning, and the paint roller would be ruined permanently, but Hank quickly decided to fuck that shit and moved straight to his bedroom, settling Connor onto one side of his king-sized bed. He tried to turn away to close the door, but Connor whined and tightened his grip on Hank’s shirt, trying to keep him from leaving him alone. Hank sighed and left the doors open, maneuvering the android’s and his own bodies under the comforter.

When he was done, Connor was still wrapped around him tightly, his head tucked under Hank’s chin and buried in his chest. The LED on his temple was pulsing dim white slowly, signifying stasis. The Lieutenant ran his fingers through Connor’s hair one last time, pressing a gentle kiss onto the top of his son’s head. Just as he was closing his eyes, he heard the doors open wider and the bed dipped significantly as the large Saint Bernard settled his body in the vacant space where Connor’s legs would have been if he hadn’t curled into a fetal position. Hank raised his head minutely, looking at the animal admonishingly.

“Look what you’ve done, you naughty, door-and-eye-opening pooch. Are you happy with yourself?”

A satisfied rumble in the dog’s chest seemed to have been a positive answer. Hank sighed again and couldn’t help a gentle smile, finding himself astonished once more by the dog’s ability to bring people together and heal them.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, I'm so happy to have you here! Thank you for reading 💙
> 
> Dogs are the best. Well actually, all pets. Connor wouldn't talk to Hank, so Sumo took the matter in his own paws XDD  
> They are going to talk a bit more in the next chapter too. The age of the lack of communication and insensivity is over!
> 
> Let me know what do you think! As I said, I love comments :)


	48. Minesweeper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank's life wasn't easy. He had to dodge bullets and pay attention to quicksands at every step, navigating both the coversations with Connor and the obstackles thrown at him and the android by everyone else.
> 
> But if that was what it took to keep Connor well, Hank was more than willing to keep doing that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I have a wholesome chapter for you today. No Trigger Warnings (what?! She can do that?) and a lot of healing. I said that there was a lot of fluff in the last chapter, but you were right, it was more like a... sleep-deprived-me's style fluff. But this one is sweet and hopeful. Enjoy :)
> 
> Well, maybe just one Warning after all, for a panic attack, but it's not a full-blown episode, more like a prelude to one, but still. Let's be safe :)

On the weekends, Hank liked to sleep longer, usually deciding to crawl out of his bed around 1 PM, and never before noon. Connor knew better than to wake him up then, waiting with breakfast until he somehow felt the human stir in his room. Yet all the chores had always been long done when Hank was finally deciding to leave his room on Sundays, so the android must have been awake as early as usual. Not today.

When the human woke up in the morning to the bedroom bathed in soft, warm light, which was finally not his enemy since he had dropped drinking, Connor was still snuggled up against him, breathing slowly, his LED pulsing pale blue. He was fast asleep, seemingly dreaming about something. Even though the instructions said that the android was incapable of it, Hank had stopped questioning Connor’s quirks a long time ago. Blue LED in stasis and soft smile on his lips were a sight no CyberLife paid tormentor would ever have seen.

Hank had a hard time untangling himself from Connor’s embrace without waking him up, but he managed to do so to reach for his phone. He wasn’t exactly the type to document every second of his life, but couldn’t deny having a few separate folders in his phone dedicated to Sumo, Connor, and Connor with Sumo together. The android’s face, still pale and smeared with white paint, but relieved and calm in his sleep was a sight worth immortalizing. Hank took a photo of Connor dozing soundly and send it to the only person who understood the joy of seeing an android happy and cared for, captioning it ‘You were right’.

Why Connor had been asleep longer than  usual , Hank wasn’t sure, but he suspected that it had something to do with the android’s utter breakdown last night. Stressing so much and for so long could have a horrible effect on a human and they had millions of years of evolution to prepare them for things like that. Connor had a yearlong development.

The Lieutenant battled with himself briefly, wondering what was he supposed to do now. He didn’t want Connor waking up to an empty room, especially after he had  spent the whole night clinging to him, and the last thing he had done before falling asleep was trying to make Hank stay with him. But when the human stood up from the bed to stretch and reevaluate his options once again, Connor jerked a bit and a quiet purr escaped him as he changed his position. Feeling no one to wrap his arms around, he opened his eyes, looking around disappointedly.

“Hey there.” Hank  knelt by the bed , reaching to smooth Connor’s cheek with his hand. The android’s eyes became calmer as he comprehended where he was and that he wasn’t alone, but there was still something somber in them.

“Everything all right?” Hank asked, brushing from his forehead one of the many unruly locks, now shorter, as Connor’s hair still hadn’t regenerated where he had ripped them.

The prototype closed his eyes and sighed deeply, rubbing his visibly sore eyes. “I’m sorry…”

“What for?” Hank smiled gently and sat on the bed, reaching out with his hands to invite Connor into a hug. He wasn’t sure if the android would accept, last night could well be just a one-time relaxation on his part. But thankfully, Connor wasted no time coming closer and pressing his body to Hank’s.

“That I’m… difficult. That I can’t comprehend reality. That you have to find out, as asking isn’t enough. I was afraid… I thought you wanted to hurt me.” Connor whispered, pressing his face into Hank’s shoulder.

“Connor, you have nothing to be sorry about. I love you the way you are. Besides, you had a reason to think that way, I bet that you don’t really know what to do with half the things you encounter…”

“Yeah.” Connor admitted, tightening his hug. Hank moved his hand to cup the back of Connor’s head.

“Whatever you do, remember, I would never hurt you. I love you, Connor, and neither physical nor emotional violence is a token of affection.” He said softly.

Connor stiffened, groaning in something that sounded like misery. “N-nooo….”

“Con, please tell me. What’s wrong?” Hank prayed to whatever god would listen to him that Connor wouldn’t  retreat back into his shell. Something or someone up there had to be gracious to him today, because the android  sighed softly again and started speaking.

“I… I thought that… Amanda said that I can’t have emotions, a-and I hoped that she was wrong for once... J-just once. I don’t need anything else. Just this one little thing…” He took in a shaky breath, as Hank kept caressing his scalp gently, murmuring reassuring words. “A-and… I had a problem… Because you punished me before, but then… not. You even apologized. And Amanda keeps d-dealing me pain. I… you said that there were different kinds of love, but they all felt similar…  your l-love and her’s do not. They are not similar… And… if you punished me, they would be. And I would have a reason why I can’t love. I c-can’t stand anyone’s suffering…”

“Oh, Con…” Hank was genuinely moved by the android’s confession. Connor tried and failed to neaten the tangled mess of manipulation and truth in his head, desperate to make  the real world and the bullshit CyberLife had fed him compatible. The conclusions he had reached was heartbreaking. “I think your love is more real than Amanda’s. No one who actually cares about another being is able to hurt them.”

“Don’t say such things about her…” Connor whispered dangerously low, going rigid in Hank’s grasp again.

“Okay, I’m sorry. I told you I’m not a fan of her parenting methods. But maybe those are just differences between us. I don’t know her, but  _ in my opinion _ , Con, she is wrong.” S _ he is evil and deserves to die in pain. _

“She loves me.” Connor said ardently, as if he had been stating an obvious fact. “Y-you can’t s-say… You said that humans weren’t always right and you are a human. You are wrong now. Amanda is right, she is always right.”

Hank sighed. He wasn’t going to backtrack on the truth he had told once. But he had also chosen not to point out that Connor still had no valid argument why his emotions weren’t real, now that he had learned that hurting others wasn’t a requirement. “That remains to be seen, some cases can only be assessed objectively after some time. But I said that  _ everyone _ is wrong at times, not only humans, remember that.”

Connor wasn’t utterly pleased with that answer, but didn’t comment on it. Still, he relaxed at that again. “S-so… I can love you and Sumo without hitting you when I’m displeased?” He asked hesitantly.

“Well, I’d say that  _ not hitting _ us is the requirement here.” Hank made himself chuckle, but he felt far less lighthearted, hearing Connor say such things. “You don’t have to punish anyone with pain, actually, you  _ can’t _ do that. That is not love, it classifies as abuse. I haven’t punished you yesterday, have I?”

Connor bit his lip. “A-and… Doctor Chapman?”

“Did you feel like you were being punished?” Hank asked, suddenly afraid and protective. He liked Lydia, but if she had done  _ anything _ to Connor, she was as good as  _ dead _ .

“N-no… Actually, it occurred to me that it was a very bizarre course of action in  a situation like that… not to be hit for everything I’d done…” Connor said quietly, snuggling closer. “B-but… I felt bad, because I thought that you engaged her in a  plot to steal me away from Amanda…”

“Did you tell her that?” Hank was a little worried, hearing Connor’s thought process, and not even because the android was so manipulated and skewed, but because it was a thing a human wouldn’t have said. Lydia had been aware that Connor was broken and brainwashed before Hank had gotten him there, but there was only so much you could say without getting suspicious.

“Y-yes. And a few other things too…” Connor said quietly, seemingly unaware of Hank’s worries. “She said that I could keep her notes and decide not to share them with anyone… but… I guess that now that you know about Amanda, there is no reason to keep them from you…” He reached  into his pocket and drew  out a sheet of paper, folded two times over.

“Con, you don’t have to.” Hank said, because despite his curiosity, he didn’t want to prey on the android just because he was naïve and didn’t quite understand the concept of privacy he should have been allowed. Connor might have been used to constant invigilation, people peering inside his mind at all times and dissecting each thought, but Hank didn’t want to be one of them. The android treated the Lieutenant as his owner, but as Carl had said, he did that because he didn’t know anything else. Hank put a hand on Connor’s wrist, lowering the notes.

“It’s your private stuff, okay? You can show me if you really want to, but I need you to understand that you don’t have to tell me anything.” He said softly, earning a bewildered stare from the android. He sighed, already knowing what Connor was about to say. “Look, son, you are so much more to me than just a machine. You deserve to be treated as a person. And every person should have their privacy. Things no one has to know…”

“But…” Connor said, visibly confused now. “You wanted me to share, right? You wanted to know what’s wrong with me…”

“Yeah…” Hank scratched his head, struggling to explain the difference. “I did and I still do. Just… It’s like with the therapist. Do you feel better after telling me all of that? After learning that I wouldn’t hit you?” When Connor nodded, the human continued. “I do want you to speak with me, but on your own terms. I want to hear everything you struggle with so that you don’t have to be with that alone. Everything you are afraid of, everything you can’t understand. But you can have your own  parts of your mind you don’t have to share , I’m not gonna play the Thought Police. Communication is fine and needed. Invigilation isn’t. If you feel that sharing anything is gonna hurt you… don’t. I won’t make you.”

The android looked a bit reassured, slowly nodding. “I understand. But I still think that… You can read them. She was diagnosing a human and I am not one. A lot of what is here, doesn’t make much sense to me.”

Hank raised one eyebrow and accepted the notes. Connor didn’t look uncomfortable and Hank genuinely hoped that he had grasped the difference. The prototype was smart, but with the amount of conflicting information he had in his head, it was no wonder that sometimes he acted unsettlingly.

_ Or… not _ . It didn’t have to be the reason, Hank realized as he ran his eyes through the notes.

On top of the sheet was Connor’s rank and his alleged surname. Hank wasn’t surprised seeing ‘Stern’ written in Dr Chapman’s neat handwriting, though the weight of it hit him a little. Connor had instinctively chosen Amanda as his mother, which was further confirmed by brief notes the therapist had made down below. Hank sighed quietly, recalling the research he had done on the woman after the visit in CyberLife’s Tower. Remembering the unusually high suicide rate of the prestigious college she had been teaching at, alongside brilliant accomplishments of the graduates. It could have been a coincidence, but… Hank really hoped that Elijah Kamski didn’t manage to grasp her personality quite well.

Judging from what Lydia had written about Connor’s answers though, Hank shouldn’t have had his hopes too high.

Hank had already figured out that saying anything bad about Amanda didn’t really sit well with Connor so he made everything in his power not to look affected as he went through the ‘childhood and environment’ section. But reading about suspected severe psychological trauma, isolation from the society, and pseudo Stockholm syndrome made him mad with anger, ready to murder every single developer in CyberLife. The part about manipulation Connor had undergone was the worst; Hank was aware that Amanda had been tailored to brainwash the android, but seeing a professional diagnosing a long list of effects of emotional and psychological abuse made his heart drop even more. Lydia had a limited time in the office with Connor, but Hank, knowing him better, could already cross out a lot of question marks next to the symptoms that had required further diagnosis. Lowered mood, anxiety or excessive fear, hopelessness, low self-esteem, inability or fear to make own decisions. Hank shook his head, thinking about how ironic it was that Connor’s software’s main selling point was that he was able to think outside the box and decide for himself, creating his own commands, but CyberLife’s attempts at controlling him made him too traumatized to utilize that.

But lower on the side, there was a section that made Hank blink in surprise. Under a caption reading ‘possible mental health issues’ Hank saw anxiety, depression, PTSD and all of that he had expected. But possible Autism Spectrum was news to him. Dr Chapman had scribbled several notes about an earlier diagnosis that should  have been done and further need to diagnose the disorder. But it hit Hank hard. Not necessarily a full diagnosis, but even being in the spectrum… that would have explained a lot…

Hank folded the notes again, looking up at the oblivious android. Connor seemed completely unmoved by the news, probably still under the impression that he was something incapable of being traumatized or in any way mentally affected, and his reactions, perfectly understandable and valid, were glitches on his part and he should have avoided them. The Lieutenant realized that he indeed had no idea what Connor was and how his mind operated. He might have been just a mechanical human, an imitation of sentience so perfect that he was no longer an imitation even, but that didn’t change the fact that humans were complicated. Hank shouldn’t have tried to solve Connor’s problems on his own, and while Carl’s advice was helpful, it was only that. Advice. Pushes in the right direction, not pointing at the destination. _I should have been much more sensitive… in a lot of ways…_

He had to start with his most jarring mistake, though.

“Con, I’m sorry I lied to you and made you go to the therapist.” Hank said quietly, lowering his head in guilt. “Lydia said that it wasn’t really fair, she wanted me to be clear to you about the real aim of the visit. But I insisted that she played along. I didn’t think it would make you so scared, I had no idea that you had already been suspicious. I should have been working on earning your trust back, not impairing it further. But… I was just afraid that you wouldn’t have gone there willingly.” He looked up at the android, who was now sitting beside him on the bed, his eyes bright and attentive. “And… I thought that you would benefit from that. But I wasn’t paying enough attention to your cues. I shouldn’t have pushed you. I should have known to look deeper…” He sighed again, remembering the warnings he had ignored.  _ ‘It’s risky,’ _ Carl had said.  _ ‘the therapy may be helpful, but don’t lose your way while chasing after the solution. When you’re lying, even for a good cause, you’re still lying.’… _

But Connor smiled softly, reaching to hold Hank’s hand like the numerous times the human had tried to, in order to establish a connection. “Well, to be fair, I wouldn’t have gone there if you said that you wanted to diagnose me. And ultimately, she was very nice. Gave me good advice too. Speaking to you is indeed much easier than being quiet.” He said, making a tremendous weight lift off Hank’s heart.

“So…” The human started, hopeful. There were nothing at all about any suspicions to what Connor really was, no clues that could possibly have pointed at his androidhood, so Hank thought that Lydia hadn’t figured it out. They were safe and able to return there. “You have nothing against her? Or therapy in general?”

“I…” This visibly discountenanced Connor, who moved his hands to grip comforter, rolling the material between fingers. Hank kicked himself  for not pinpointing this  stimming earlier. Connor might have needed a further diagnosis to confirm the suspicions, but some telltale clues had been prodding at his eyes for some time already and the thought that Connor could have some development issues had never even crossed his mind. “I actually didn’t plan to go back there. I took the notes to destroy them...”

“But you didn’t.” The Lieutenant stated tentatively. He didn’t want to have too high hopes, but at the same time…

“No.” Connor’s voice was quiet. “I… She is a human. And I thought at that time that humans were always right, and even if they aren’t in reality… ultimately, she gave me good advice. A-and… I wanted to feel better… S-she said that I could, so…” He fell silent before his voice could break, but Hank still heard the waver. He put an arm around the android and gathered him closer, relief washing over him as Connor melted into the hug.

“I promise you will, son.”

* * *

After the cathartic talk they had, Connor insisted that they hurried to the station. Of course, Hank knew that it was tied to the  event Markus had planned, according to Connor, but the human didn’t want to move too quickly. It occurred to him, that the prototype would benefit from a slower morning, allowing him to regenerate after the night and long days of intensive stress. Even though his healing properties were incredible, apparently they didn’t work so well when he was distressed or wrung out by emotional breakdowns. Hank promised himself that they would stay home at least long enough for the android’s hair to grow back.

The time needed for Connor’s external features to regenerate they spent on cleaning up the mess done last night. Connor still looked uncomfortable at having the Lieutenant in the garage, with his writings exposed like that, even though Hank was making an effort not to pay them any mind. It was obvious that at some point, they needed to address the elephant in the room, but Hank didn’t want to rush this talk. And they had more urgent things to do in order to appear at the precinct today.

Having cleaned the floor and dumped the caked  paint roller in the trash, Hank looked over Connor’s clothes critically. The android bit his lip, knowing exactly what was the problem. “I… I didn’t have any spare clothes. I hoped that I wouldn’t get paint on these…”

Indeed, Connor’s pants and shoes were covered in white dots everywhere. To make  matters worse, on their last shopping trip, they only bought shirts and no trousers…

Hank sighed, deciding that Connor’s button-up needed to be changed as well. It was so wrinkled that even the Lieutenant would have been self-conscious about  waltzing into the bullpen in it. “Okay. Wear one of the shirts we bought  at the mall. And don’t worry about shoes or pants, they aren’t that dirty. Tomorrow CyberLife can provide you a new set, right?”

Connor bit his lip. “I don’t know… I’d have to report how I destroyed them…”

“Okay, I get that. We’re going shopping again, then.”

Thankfully, Connor didn’t have any problems with that. The earthly-green shirt went poorly with the grey blazer, but the android didn’t show any intention of parting with it. Hank didn’t comment on that, busying himself with the rest of the chores to do. Connor  became more and more impatient by the minute, especially since Hank wouldn’t let him do everything himself.

“Haaaank…”

“Con, I promise that we’re going to get there eventually, all right? It’s still before noon, and humans usually don’t do much this early on Sundays. If Markus wants to make a stand to which he had been preparing so thoroughly, he’s probably going to choose a time when the most people are going to see it.” He said, handing Connor a glass of water he had asked for. The Lieutenant recalled that users’ guide had said something about the need to replenish certain fluids if their use is abundant, and Connor had shed so many tears last night, that Hank quietly suspected that he was running on dehydrated thirium at this point.

The android didn’t look too pleased with not  already being at the spot where Markus was due to appear, but at the same time, he didn’t have too many arguments to battle Hank’s, since they didn’t know where said spot was. So he resigned to sipping the water, his thirium-shot eyes slowly returning to normal. Over all, Connor’s appearance was still betraying that he had had some hard time lately .

“You still have paint on your face, Con.” Hank said fondly, sitting at the table with the breakfast he  made for himself for the first time in two months. Of course, the prototype had protested, but Hank had been determined to give him a break. He was perfectly capable of scrambling some eggs on his own and Connor deserved peace for once.

“Oh…” He rubbed his forehead, getting rid of the smears. It made Hank think again about the very reason they had gotten there.

The writings and pictures he had seen in the garage were… disturbing, to say the least. Hank wanted to know what they were about, hoping that he would have been able to possibly help the android, but… he didn’t want to ask him directly about them, for fear of waking his traumas. Still, he didn’t want to manipulate him either.

“Con, now there is no time, but when we get back home, would you like my help with painting those scribbles over? Provided that you actually want to get rid of them, as far as I’m concerned, I don’t give a fuck if they stay there or not. Your call, son.”

“I…” Connor seemed to consider that proposition. The half-full glass of water danced between his fingers nervously. “I don’t know. If… If you let me write there… I’d probably scribble  on the wall all over again at some point.”

“Why did you do it, anyway?” Hank asked gently. “I’m okay with it, but I’m just curious.”

The android was quiet for so long that Hank had time to resign himself to not receiving an answer when Connor sighed deeply before speaking. “You once said that… that drawing could be a good way to unwind. You… t-took the other one away from me.” Hank was afraid that he knew what the android was talking about and if he could have punched himself, he would have done that right now.

_ When did he do that? How could I not have been there for him then?! Even if Connor doesn’t want to share anything, I should have guessed that he needed me. What kind of a parent  _ _ am I? _

“Do you want to talk about this?” He offered, deciding that the past could not be altered, but the future was yet to come. And Hank planned to never condemn Connor to loneliness again.

The slightest nod made him both sigh with  relief and grow apprehensive. “I’d like to  get to the station now… but when we get back… yes.”

* * *

Fowler wasn’t happy, seeing them at the precinct  on Sunday, violating the policy of avoiding overworking themselves in broad daylight. He was probably just as angry about it as he was surprised to see Hank willingly coming to work when he didn’t have to. Overall, seeing  the usually collected and well-organized Captain so confused was quite a curiosity. Hank was smirking , observing his friend genuinely torn between several different emotions.

“What the fuck are you even doing here?” He asked Hank, having bumped into him and Connor near the entrance to the bullpen.

The android was the one to answer. “As I informed you yesterday, Captain, my predictions suggest that an elaborate event planned by Markus is about to take place today. We don’t have any indication as to where, but I assume that he would like to have the largest number of spectators possible if he is about to make a stand connected to today’s date. Therefore, I believe that it is going to be somewhere in the city center, and the station is closer to it than my owner’s house.”

“Uh…” Fowler’s expression darkened a bit suddenly and Hank couldn’t help but be alarmed by it. A dark pit formed in his stomach, knowing that the hard-boiled Captain would have only worn such a face if something bad had happened or was about to happen. And also, it must have been personal, this kind of a concealed concern, not obvious or well-read by the ones who didn’t know him as well as Hank did, was only induced by things that struck too close  to home.

“Hank, I need to speak with you. Without your android.” He added, when Connor started to follow them to the glass room in the middle of the bullpen.

Connor tilted his head, seemingly already catching the wind that something was off, but obeyed and went towards their desks instead. Hank stepped into the Captain’s office with shivers creeping up his spine. They intensified when the man hit a button and the glass walls turned from translucent to frosty and opaque.

“It’s Perkins.” The Captain said, preferring to spill the beans right away instead of keeping Hank in the dark and approaching the subject gently. Honestly, Hank couldn’t have been more thankful for that. He was sick of dancing around sensitive cases instead of getting round to them, and while Connor needed that and just couldn’t operate differently, Hank would rather that Fowler stopped keeping secrets from him.

“What’s up with that cocksucker?” Hank asked, raising his eyebrow, sitting at the chair in front of the desk. Fowler’s lip quirked at that. If the Lieutenant had said that about anyone but the Special Agent, the Captain would have scolded him for such disrespect. But Fowler hated that prick equally as much as Hank did.

“It’s no mystery to you that this fucker is bossing everyone around like he owned the place. And while I’m just annoyed by that, since it should be my job and even being a fed, he doesn’t have real power here… I’m afraid that you are far more subordinate to him than me.” Fowler’s eyes were hard as he locked them with Hank’s.

“Yeah, gotta live with that.” Hank shrugged, even though he had a gut feeling that his superior had gotten him here to do more than just explain how federal cases worked. “I know that he is a pain in the ass, but at least he let me stay on the investigation with Connor…”

“Hank, Connor  _ is _ the problem here.” Fowler said, making the Lieutenant’s blood run cold. “I’ll admit, I didn’t have the best opinion about your android after the first few flops and the glitching at the beginning, but honestly, it’s a great tool and a brilliant case-solver. I’ve made up my mind about it, even if  its influence on you is… a bit concerning, apart from the be-on-time-and-sober part. But now, Perkins is snooping around taking it away from DPD.”

“What?!” Hank felt both like fainting and tearing someone’s throat open, preferably Perkins’, at the same time. He didn’t register that he had sprung to his feet until he realized that Fowler was standing up as well, reaching out to put his hand on Hank’s shoulder, his eyes concerned. “H-he can’t do that! Connor is…”

“…On the lease.” The Captain finished grimly, his voice quiet. “As much as I would want to keep it here, even if just to prevent that entitled fucker from getting what he wants, I really can’t. You are not even Connor’s real owner, just a technical placeholder, fulfilling that role for the duration of the agreement. I’m sorry, Hank…”

“No, no, no, fucking NO.” The Lieutenant shook his superior’s hand off, feeling trembles settling into his bones. A nightmare after nightmare. First, he had lost one son to fatal injuries in a car crash, then he had watched the other one die in a shootout and come back, just to learn that he was about to be stolen from him? “No. I’m Connor’s supervisor and I will  _ NOT  _ fucking agree to that.”

“Hank, I’m afraid that he isn’t interested in talking with you.” The Captain looked genuinely sorry. “He had already started a conversation with CyberLife and I’m barely even required in changing the allocation. Connor might have been leased to Detroit Police, but just because we had the deviants case. The case that now is led mainly by the feds, with Perkins the great mastermind of it.”

“You’re… No. It can’t be true. Jeffrey, please, tell my you’re joking…” Hank suddenly felt very weak, and had the impression that there was no air in the room. He forced his breath to calm down, the only thing that kept him from having a fully-blown panic attack right now was the knowledge that had he shown his superior how much he cared about the android, Fowler would have gotten even more suspicious than he already was. “Jeff, you can’t let him. Y-you’re the boss here…”

“I’m only the boss where my bosses allow me to be one, Hank.” The man said heavily. “While I technically should be able to order the feds who enter this particular precinct around on the short notice, I ultimately am under command of Deputy Chief and the Chief of Police, I’m sure you know that… And they are collaborating with  the FBI.”

The Lieutenant felt the ground escape his feet. He sensibly sat down to avoid fainting. Fowler was aware that Hank strongly objected to Connor being taken away from him, but losing consciousness at the news would have been significantly harder to explain. He took several deep breaths attempting to collect his mind and accepted a glass of water his friend held out for him, seeing that he wasn’t well.

“Hank, are you all right?” The Captain asked softly, sitting behind the desk with a concerned look on his face.

“No.” There was no use lying. Hank took another sip of water, trying to focus on functioning adequately. “I had a rough night, and additionally… I’m not happy about the news.”

“I’m aware.” Fowler sighed. “Me neither. I tried to stop the process as much as I could, but I don’t have a lot to say…”

“Why? Why does that fucker even want him?” Hank shook his head, trying not to sound too emotional.  _ Why does he want to take my son away from me? _

“Well…” The Captain grimaced. “He was impressed by the android’s predictions about today. Not many people believe that Markus is actually going to do anything, but Perkins isn’t one of them. He organized several riot combat units and hid them in the city. Whatever the deviants are planning, he’s ready.” The Captain sighed and his face darkened further. “He wants Connor for himself. Last time I saw him, he was reading the users’ guide pretty thoroughly. I don’t think he finds you worthy of wielding such an advanced tool.”

“Shit…” Hank hid his face in his hands. “He had it in for me since the beginning.”

Fowler sighed. “Unfortunately, I think you’re right. I tried to convince him that you have been doing better lately and are already returning to your peak form, but he didn’t even acknowledge my words. I’m sorry, Hank…”

The Lieutenant shook his head slowly, battling the tears that threatened to spill from his eyes.  _ Come on, Hank, think. You need to protect Con. You’ve done that already a few times… _

_ Oh. _ All of a sudden, an idea sparkled in his mind. “Uh…” He started, tentatively. The Lieutenant needed to choose his words carefully. “So, the only parts who have anything to say are the Chief of Police and CyberLife?”

“Basically.” Fowler nodded, raising an eyebrow at Hank’s sudden change of demeanor. “You look like you have something on your mind…”

“I might, yes.” Hank locked his eyes with the Captain. “But let’s be clear. You’re in?”

The Captain sighed heavily. “Is it illegal?”

“No! I don’t need you to do anything, geez, Jeffrey…” _ Well it is, but you don’t have to know that… _ Hank pouted in a perfect impression of being rightfully offended. “Who do you think I am?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure lately…” The Captain admitted, a bit sheepishly, if anything. “But okay, I guess I shouldn’t have assumed that you were willing to break the law for that android.”

_ I’d kill for that android. _ “Nah, Jeff, I’m just talking about convincing some people from Connor’s development team to help us. You sit here and write forms, play along the idiots I send you, trying to make Perkins’ life as miserable as you can, deal?”

“If that’s all I need to do, you don’t have to convince me too hard.” The Captain smirked and shrugged. “Hank, I trust that you’re not gonna get yourself in trouble, okay? You’re free to go, but don’t do anything stupid…”

_ Don’t worry, I’ve already done that _ . “Of course not. Thanks for letting me know about it, Jeff.” Hank smiled friendly as he was closing the door that turned translucent again the moment he stepped off the stairs.

Connor was still sitting at his desk peacefully and shot Hank a questioning look with a tilt of his head, having met his eyes. The Lieutenant just waved a hand, trying to let him know that there was nothing to worry about and taking out his phone and gesturing at it to let him know that he just needed to call. Connor didn’t look utterly reassured, but he shrugged and got back to interacting with the keyboard again.

Hank, on the other hand, went out of the station and returned to his car , quickly stuffing his own phone back  into his pocket. Instead, the Lieutenant reached into his cubby-hole, taking out a portable voice recorder alongside  a burner phone that  anyone could buy at  any shop with electronic devices. The kind the criminals liked to use to make it impossible for the police to track them. Certain safety measures needed to be taken.

Hank himself wasn’t a criminal, but he was calling people who belonged in jail.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. They are making up. And they are going to make progress, I'm done having them fall out like in telenovelas. They learned their lessons.
> 
> That doesn't mean however that there is not going to ba any angst in the future...
> 
> And. I have to tell you something. I had a lot to do in the last few weeks so was barely able to keep up with writing. I still have a few chapters prewritten, but I might do a random pause of half a week at some point. I know that I already said that, but it's getting even more real now, since in a few weeks, I might get on antidepressants and I don't know how they are going to affect my mood and productiveness. I don't want to write when I don't feel like it, because that is likely to result in a so-so chapters, and I want this story to be top-notch, cause you all deserve it.  
> But don't worry, even if I go for a hiatus, it's not likely to be too long. I'm really invested in this fic (as you have probably noticed already) and I'm definitely going to finish it.  
> I'll try to warn you before a pause takes place, but don't worry if I randomly miss an update.  
> Thank you for reading and keeping up with me :)
> 
> EDIT: I've decided that the next chapter is going to come out on Monday and I'll stick to updating once a week for some time, I'll tell you why in the next chapter ;)


	49. Moved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, Connor's behavior was indeed beyond Hank.  
> It could go completely againts what CyberLife wanted him to do, what the users' guide suggested. It could be completely irrational.  
> Hank had no idea why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! So... I know I said in the last chapter that I would inform you if I were going to miss an update. But I decided two days later that I needed to postpone this chapter to today. Or rather realized something important.  
> I never wanted this fic to be too long (you're doing great in this regard, sleep-deprived-me) and by that I mean that I value quality over quantity. And I don't want to write filler-chapters that would be meaningless to the story and just make you bored. So I couldn't produce more material to throw chapter 51 further into the queque and stick to the twice-a-week update scheme. (Besides I have a lot of work at my university, but that's another story.)  
> And this is significant, since chapter 51 is actually describing Christmas. And I am using it as an important plot device, you will see. But when we're at it, the timing is nearly perfect to post it around Christmas. It would be a shame to waste such an opportunity, and this way I will have a chance to catch a breath too. So, no hiatus is going to happen, but for the next few weeks, I'm going to update the story on Mondays only. I hope that this solution makes everyone happy :)

Several beeps in the phone later, a tentative voice Hank immediately recognized, answered the call.

“Hello? Who is it?”

“Oh, I’m so glad to hear your voice, Kerring.” The Lieutenant grinned widely, hearing a choked gasp of surprise from the programmer. “How’s it going?”

This time, before the man answered, a tired sigh could be heard. The man’s voice had a tangible undertone of irritation, but it was quiet, as if he was trying to keep the talk a secret. “So, that’s it now? You’re calling me from some untraceable phone on my private number to blackmail me further?”

“Wow, you’re bright.” Hank huffed a chuckle. “Good, I thought I’d have to explain it to ya. Also, I’m sure that you know that I’m not stupid enough to let you program some shit to record our calls. You must have expected me to figure that out and not even bother to bug my private phone number, right?”

A nervous pause in front of the sentence contradicted the following words of the programmer. “…Uhh, y-yes. I mean, I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t even try to…”

 _Perfect. Now I know for sure not to say anything incriminating while calling from my own phone_. Hank felt an urge to smile again, but he didn’t have too much time to celebrate his victory. Connor was waiting for him.

“Okay, so being that galaxy-brain you are, you must know that I’d only call you and bother your sorry, abusive ass if I needed you for something… Do you maybe happen to suspect what is it?”

The programmer sighed again, sounding as if he had expected that the topic would blow up at some point. “The lease’s transfer? From the DPD to FBI?”

“Bingo.”

“Look…” Kerring was still talking quietly, but he became a little more irritated. “I barely have any influence… Um…” He quickly backtracked from that alley. Hank didn’t fail to miss that. “I’m not the one responsible for the exact shape of the lease and what it entails. There are people above me…”

“Yup. But you are the chief of the AI’s development team and additionally Connor’s main operator during the lease. Please, don’t sell me that bullshit about you not having anything to say about it.” Hank barked. “I won’t fucking fall for it.”

The other human was silent for a long while. When he answered again, his voice was a bit different, though. “You… You can’t really blackmail me, I can’t help you. I can’t do anything more, tampering with Connor’s field tests could be disastrous, if I were to do anything else apart from what I’ve already done. Not reprogramming it, distancing Amanda away from it, omitting the server fixes… it was all a mistake in my opinion and I pray that it didn’t have too much of an effect on its software…” He gulped loudly and Hank could hear the waver in his voice as he spoke up again. The programmer was scared shitless. “Besides… I c-cant really do anything else without them getting suspicious…”

“Well, sucks to be you, then.” Hank couldn’t find even one iota of remorse in himself for the man. “You’d have to play it out carefully then, a good opportunity to use your wits. I’m sure you will come up with something. You have to, after all.”

“No, I told you. I’m not doing anything else for you. I don’t care that much about Bernard Lloyd, you don’t even have any tangible evidence… Besides… His father has already managed to hush up so much that you couldn’t possibly find anything on him.” He spoke with the kind of self-assurance shining through fear that reminded Hank of those children’s movies’ heroes gaining their footing and an advantage over the bad guys in the last possible moment during the final battle.

 _Well, too bad I’m the well-prepared villain, then._ “Oh? I couldn’t? Well, you might find it interesting, then, to hear about a case I’d been working on several years back. A bridge over Saint Clair Canal had collapsed and seven people died in that accident. The evidence suggested arson. But the people daddy sent to feed us that bullshit were either underpaid or not the brightest. Their work was sloppy and ultimately, it was obvious that the fire couldn’t have been the direct cause of the collapse. That sent us digging and we were forced to interview the engineers who had constructed the bridge. Thoroughly. Guess who was responsible for the arch that collapsed, taking seven lives?”

Kerring was silent. Hank smiled, deducing that the man was already connecting the dots.

“So, we tried contacting ‘independent’ engineers to review the blueprints of the bridge, but their expertise seemed… fishy to me. And I’d like you to know that among those killed was a five year old and his father, the entire family of a certain woman I felt extremely remorseful for. I had a son myself back then and empathized with her, knowing that… losing a child is probably the worst thing that could happen to any human being.” Hank managed to keep the pain in his voice to the bare minimum. He doubted that the programmer would have noticed the waver, but he didn’t want to show any weakness at all.

“So I tried to snoop around, but… the case closed suspiciously. I was praised for my involvement, got a bonus and thrown onto another case. But… I still have that woman’s number.” Hank’s voice dropped into a darker tone. “And I tell you, losing a family isn’t something you get over easily. She has been battling with the Lloyds this whole time, but not having the resources police has, she wasn’t able to do much. But she has been working hard. The only things she needs to take ‘em down is the research I have done now that I knew where to look, thanks to you.” Hank smiled again, even though the programmer couldn’t see him. “And sure, that’s just one case. But I worked on a lot of others too and I have a lot of friends. I will eventually help her get closure on that idiot… The only question is whether you are going down with him or not.”

“Wh-what do you mean?” As opposed to his long silence the programmer spoke so suddenly now that it was evident how afraid he had become. Now Hank could almost smell his fear, masked sloppily with anger and annoyance. _Angry and scared, it can’t be better. Now just waiting for the final mistake…_

“Well. You tell me. You are the egghead here, Kerring.”

Hank heard an audible tut from the device. “What the hell are you even implying? Okay, m-maybe… I know that Bernard is a bloody disaster and that he sprinkles design flaws everywhere he goes, but it’s not my fault. He might have killed those people but it wasn’t me. I’m just sitting here, trying to do my fucking job and you are blackmailing me cause I, Megan and Pyotr are aware of how much of an idiot he is and it slipped us? You can renew your case or whatever, but you cannot link me to hushing it up. You don’t even have any recording of me saying anything bad about him or telling you about that bloody thirium pump regulator flaw…”

“Well, now I do.” Hank grinned and pressed the ‘save recording’ button on the device he was holding to the phone to capture every word that left his and the programmer’s lips. The button made an audible sound and Hank could almost see with his own eyes how Kerring’s face lost all color on the other end of the call.

“Wh….What did y-you…”

“I know that you prepared to record me to get the evidence against myself, but did that on my private phone, ‘cause you think I’m an ameba. Well, I might be, but a smarter one than you. Now _I_ have all of our lovely conversation recorded. The part when you own up to severing Connor’s connection with the server and Amanda, knowing about Lloyd’s fuckups and the fact that they were hushed up. Oh, and let’s not forget that you just recounted that it was you, Torres and Belansky who were so kind to inform me about it and make me start digging. Thank you, it was the last piece I needed to drown you all in shit.”

The silence on the other end lasted so long that Hank had begun to wonder if he didn’t just kill the programmer with that news, before a voice, significantly weaker and more choked spoke again.

“N-no… You wouldn’t do that. Th… This evidence incriminate you as well… blackmailing is… illegal… They would fire you…”

“Ask my boss how much I care about my job when Connor’s not around. Spoiler, I fucking don’t. Before he came here, I had been suicidal, he literally stole bullets from my gun to keep me from killing myself. I don’t give a shit about my job, freedom or whatever and I could sacrifice it all to keep him unharmed. So you’re gonna do what I tell you, cause if you don’t, then I’ll destroy your whole fucking career and possibly life.” He spat, not restricting the absolute, raging hatred he felt for the programmer on the other side of the line. When he was finished, he heard a muffled sniffle in response and couldn’t help a grin creeping up on his face at having made the fucker who had hurt Connor so badly cry.

Kerring was trying to pretend that he wasn’t so much affected, but it came out just as good as any other of his attempts at lying. “Wh-what do you want?! Leave me alone!”

“I’ve already told you. Fix the lease. Connor stays with me, or you’re _dead_.” Hank was done playing nice. Both him and Kerring knew that CyberLife and the Lloyds weren’t fucking around when it came to disloyalty. Connor was the best example of that.

 “I don’t know if I can! I t-told you, I’m not the one r-responsible for it!... I c-could try, but I don’t know if I’d be able to do anything… And even if I would, it would just be buying you time… Please I need that job…”

“Ask yourself if I care. You know what my terms are, I expect a call within fifteen minutes on the same number. You’d better have some results, ‘cause I’m not bluffing.” He hung up without waiting for a response. Kerring needed to know that he wasn’t in control of any aspect of the situation.

Hank carefully hid the recorder, having made sure that the incriminating evidence had been saved. He had bought one of the more expensive models, wanting to be certain that the data would be safe. He needed to have a strong leverage over the fuckers who wanted to take Connor away from him.

The Lieutenant was aware that his actions would have been hard to defend if the situation was any different that it was. He was literally blackmailing people, threatening them with death and illegally gathering evidence against them. It wasn’t like he had asked for permission to access the files from that bridge case… And all of that in order to alienate someone from their previous guardians.

Hank sighed, cherishing the fact that Connor was only imprinted on Amanda and not on the entirety of CyberLife. The android had no idea that Hank made an effort to keep Connor’s connection with his handler broken, and judging from his reaction from last night, it was best to keep it that way. The Lieutenant didn’t want to lie to his son, but at this point, there was no other option. He promised himself to find a way to sell that information to him softly, before the shit hit the fan and Connor got a chance to see it in an unfavorable light. All Hank did to alienate the android from the company, he was doing because he wanted Connor to receive help and regain happiness, which was impossible under the wings of CyberLife and Amanda. But Connor did not understand that yet.

Hank leaned back in his chair, thinking about the uncomfortable truths he needed to share with Connor in order not to manipulate him. The android had certainly had enough of it already, but all the bullshit he had been forced to swallow changed and skewed his mind to the point that he wasn’t able to look at the world from a distance. Hank wondered if being completely transparent with Connor was indeed the best idea. It could backfire just as easily as keeping the truth concealed as long as possible… until it inevitably came to light.

He was torn away from his thoughts by a ring of the cheap phone he was still clutching in his hand. Ten minutes had passed, he noted. Kerring was trying to hold his end of the bargain.

“A month.” A broken, tired voice of an utterly subdued man spoke from the device as Hank answered the call. “It’s all I could do. I’m sorry, just… I can’t argue with FBI. It’s the most I’ve been able to negotiate. Please, I can’t do more…”

The Lieutenant gritted his teeth. He had hoped that the programmer would have been able to cancel the transfer altogether, but realized that it was probably a lost cause. Perkins had a lot of influence, and feds in general weren’t used to not getting what they wanted either. Judging from the way the programmer behaved, being a complete pile of steaming shit when it came to acting, he was telling the truth. Maybe there wasn’t any other option after all…

“Okay.” Hank sighed, knowing that pushing too hard wouldn’t do anyone good either. If he forced the idiot to do more, he could get in trouble and that would mean a loss of the mole in the company. Hank needed to work with what he had been given. “I expect you to exploit every chance at fucking the transfer up you’ll get, is that clear?”

“Yeah.” Kerring sighed, sounding like a rebellious kid who had realized that standing up to elders wasn’t worth it.

“Good. I’ll keep in touch with ya.” Hank promised darkly and hung up again, deactivating the phone. He tossed it back into the cubby-hole and exited the car, dark thoughts swirling in his head at everything that was happening.

He had expected to find Connor waiting for him at the desk, buried in work or just tossing the coin around, but it was neither of the cases. The android had been standing next to his chair, visibly distressed and upset, talking with Fowler and Perkins, of all people.

“But I could come in handy! I was designed to chase and subdue them! Not to monitor the streets!” Connor spoke, a bit too loudly to pass as completely unemotional. After a moment, though, he seemed to have reconsidered his statement and added, “Though my functions are not limited to only that task, I’m fit for any order you’d give me, Special Agent. Still, I would be better suited for chases! I need to make use of my ab-“

“You need to follow orders.” Perkins said coldly, raising an eyebrow. “Do you seem to have any objection to it?”

Connor faltered at that, dropping his eyes to the floor and tugging on his sleeve nervously. “Of course not.”

“Good. Then you stay here and link to the encrypted long-range frequency we’ve established and listen to the reports from the units I have scattered throughout the city. Link to the public CCTV system as well. That could help us locate the deviants even before any reports come in and we don’t have anything else capable of handling so much input. Wasting those four petabytes of RAM you have in your skull would be a shame, now wouldn’t it?” No one said anything at Perkins’ statement and he cemented his decision with a smirk and a self-assured ‘that’s what I thought.’

The smile vanished from his face, however, the moment he saw Hank approaching them. “Oh. Anderson.”

“It’s a pleasure too, Special Agent.” Hank greeted him with a saccharine smile and debated whether or not to add an obeisance too, but ultimately decided not to push his luck. He might have just won a month with Connor, but Kerring was just one programmer and an FBI Agent could well derail Hank’s efforts if only he tried hard enough. And Perkins already had a clear disdain towards the Lieutenant.

The shorter man rolled his eyes anyway and straightened his back, looking at Hank like he had a chore to do with him. “As I was saying, you and the RK are staying at the station today. I’m glad that the android managed to drag you out of your bed on duty, but only because you’re still needed for the next few days as its operator…”

“Jesus, calm down, it’s fucking Sunday and you’re acting like you’re entitled to me coming to work today even though I’m off duty.” Hank twisted his lips in disgust. It was hard to stick to his previous plan regarding his attitude.

“Well of course I am.” Perkins smiled and Hank dreamed of nothing more than punching him in that fucking hooked nose of his. “If the android is correct, and I assume that it’s highly possible, then you could come in handy for once. I guess that you’re aware of that too, since you showed up here to work. Then I’m just doing what I’m supposed to. Ordering you.”

It was Hank’s turn to roll his eyes. “And what your order would be?”

“There is a room I had my people prepare earlier with a view on today’s supposed event. While I don’t suspect that you would be either qualified or smart enough to operate the technology there, you’d need to supervise the RK as it links to the network. It knows what it’s supposed to do. I’m going to be in touch with all of you, but I plan to leave to see whatever the deviants have in stock with my own eyes.” Perkins made a shooing gesture with his hands, chasing Connor away like a dog from his desk. “Room C-117. The Captain will see you to it.”

Fowler gritted his teeth but swallowed the comment that evidently pressed on his lips and turned around, moving towards the staircase. Connor and Hank followed him, the latter utterly aware of the android’s sour expression.

“Con, what’s wrong?” Hank asked quietly as they walked up the stairs and down a corridor.

“I wanted to have another chance to catch a deviant.” He mumbled, looking down. “I didn’t manage to catch North last time and she is definitely going to be with Markus on whatever they are planning. Maybe he would take the other two from the Stratford four as well. And Perkins isn’t even going to allow me to try.”

Hank sighed, putting an arm around Connor’s shoulders. “Kid, Perkins is a dick…”

“Agreed.” Fowler tossed around his shoulder, earning a chuckle from Hank and a smirk from Connor.

“You’re going to help catch them in a different way, don’t worry. No one else is going to be as effective in surveying the CCTV as you, I bet that your help would be just as valuable as it would be if you were on the crime scene.” Hank said reassuringly.

Connor just huffed, abashed. “I was hoping I would do better than back then…”

Both the humans smiled amusedly at that. They stopped in front of said room and Fowler gestured at the door, urging them inside. The whole interior, previously hosting a minor technical room was now cleaned up, the old furniture stacked in the corner neatly. In the middle of the room was now a giant computer hooked directly to the core of the electrical installation of the building in the wall, several monitors and the giant body of a PC, looking powerful enough to fit the labs Hank had seen in CyberLife. Connor sat at the chair without a word and extended his hands touching the inductive keyboard made specifically to allow androids an easier and faster connection. The monitors sprung to life and several windows popped up on them, Hank recognizing various points in Detroit seen through the eyes of public cameras.

“Okay, I’ll leave you to it.” Fowler said, squeezing Hank’s arm and turning towards the exit.

“ Thanks, Jeff. Good luck with Perkins.” Hank wished, extracting a chair from the pile in the corner and sitting beside Connor like a sidekick.

“Oh, I’m gonna need it…” The captain sighed, closing the door. Hank smiled sympathetically, feeling pity for his friend made to deal with the likes of Perkins.

When he turned around to peer at the monitor again, he was startled by Connor’s face inches from his, staring at him insistently. He jerked back, surprised by the proximity of the android who had to this moment been seemingly focused on the interface with the computer.

“Jesus!” Hank barely managed to keep himself on the chair, putting a hand over his racing heart. “Uh, you spooked me, Con…”

“Sorry.” The android looked sheepish, but his eyes weren’t quite focused at Hank. The human noticed that the images from the CCTV were still flashing on the monitor, so Connor was probably dividing his attention between the Lieutenant and watching the streets. “I’m currently unable to measure the distance between us, my primary partitions are engaged in the search for the deviants.”

“That’s okay…” Hank huffed a sigh and moved his chair back a little. “What did you wanna ask?’

“You were talking with the Captain and he looked disturbed…” Connor blinked and this time, he managed to find Hank’s eyes perfectly. “And… Perkins said something earlier… That you are still needed as my operator… for the next few days. Hank, what is happening?” There was so much innocent worry on Connor’s face that Hank’s already fractured heart threatened to break again.

He sighed, not wanting to delve into this subject right now. Connor would surely have been too distressed to work if he knew that the Agent was trying to take him away from Hank, judging from how he reacted to the same being done with Amanda, on whom he had been imprinted as well. And not being able to function as intended always just stressed him further.

Besides, Hank wasn’t even sure if it was a good idea to tell Connor the whole truth. The android was already traumatized enough, and if he had a clear deadline of the safety provided by Hank’s presence in his life, the human was sure that it would have made him unable to relax ever again. Hank needed to find a way to extend that month before it ended or fight tooth and claw for Connor when the time came.

“Don’t think about it now, son. Just focus on the work and I promise I’ll tell you everything in the evening, okay?”

Connor nodded and closed his eyes, giving all his attention to the task at hand, and leaving the Lieutenant to figure out how to word every little bit of what he owned to the android properly.

* * *

Ultimately, waiting for Markus’ show to take place turned out to be boring. Hank was happy that he had a book with himself. Not having anything to do, he finished ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ and noted with disappointment that while being quite interesting, it wasn’t too informative and didn’t help him understand Connor’s behavior better. Although he had yet to ask the prototype what he was dreaming about…

“There!” Connor exclaimed, startling the human again and making him drop the book. “They’re on Woodward Avenue!”

Hank sprang up from his seat and ran towards the monitors, hovering over the focused android. One of the four screens was constantly displaying an entrance to one of the malls in the city center. Their assumptions had been right then, Markus had chosen a place in the middle of Detroit and a time during the heaviest traffic in the shops, to ensure that as many humans as possible would be present to see the deviants’ message.

The entrance to the mall was already crawling with androids. At least fifteen of them, some dressed like humans and some in brand new uniforms fitting their models were exiting the mall, following a certain group of familiar-looking machines. Even though the CCTV didn’t display any colors, the footage was crisp enough to tell that there was an android with a face Hank had already seen without skin, leading a group of two males and a female, clearly at the forefront of the march. Markus.

“They didn’t turn off the cameras.” Connor said quietly. “It was a concern of mine. I was afraid that I would prove to be useless, since all their other actions were stealthy on their parts. They want to be seen this time. And by as many as possible.”

Just as he was saying that, Markus stared directly into the camera, and Hank could feel shivers creeping up his spine. The RK200 was extraordinarily charismatic, one could tell that even by looking at the footage of a security camera. There was no hatred or fear in them, just an unrelenting determination.

“Did you notify Perkins’ SWAT units?” Hank asked and received a quick nod from the android observing the screen attentively.

Hank watched as Markus moved to a group of people, stepping fearlessly between the humans who dispersed, seeing a porcelain-white hand reaching between them to touch a shoulder of an android kneeling in front of his former owner. A PL600 had dropped a shopping bag he had been carrying behind the human and was being berated for it. The man stopped immediately, anger giving in to bewilderment as his previous property stood up, jerking away from him, and moving behind Markus. The man tried to reach out, clearly irritated by the situation, but the RK200 moved in front of the other machine, saying something with a hard expression.

Hank had trouble understanding what the deviant had said, but Connor spoke up soon after, translating the lip movement for him. “He said: let him go. He’s free now.”

“Hmm…” Hank hummed, watching as the human stepped back, seemingly utterly taken aback by the audacity of the androids, walking away from him. He was soon cut off by an ever-growing crowd of deviants, Markus moving from android to android, touching their shoulders and sparking life into their dead eyes. Hank was disturbed, seeing that all it took for them to suddenly break their boundaries was a transfer and not even accepted at that. His horror only grew as Markus soon moved to just looking at the machines, absentmindedly following their orders on the pavements, next to their owners. Each time, they seemed to somehow sense the attention the RK200 gave them and turned around, their LEDs blinking wildly as they abandoned their posts and occupations to join the march now filling the entire street.

“Con, maybe…” Hank couldn’t help feeling uneasy, seeing how easily the leader turned every android he had laid his eyes on into a faulty machine. “Don’t look…”

“Why?” The android kept his eyes glued to the streets. “I need to see a pattern. Understand them better…”

“What if he makes you a deviant too?” The Lieutenant tried hard to keep the worry out of his voice, but it didn’t work. He was scared of the thought of Connor falling prey to whatever was changing these machines into… not exactly bloodthirsty monsters, Hank realized as Markus approached yet another human trying to stop her android from joining the march and gently tugged on her wrist, coaxing her hand away and placing himself protectively in front of the newly formed deviant.

_They might not be killing people just yet… But I’ve seen ones who did. Connor can’t join them._

Hank shook his head. “I’m worried about you, son. Remember that JB300 that turned deviant in the studio? All it took for Markus was a look into the camera…”

Connor was silent for a long while, still observing the deviants. “He looked at me that way today. Maybe he knew I was watching…” The silence after that lingered oddly in the air. Connor was speaking quietly, as if sharing a secret. “…But I still didn’t deviate.”

Hank swallowed thickly. He had no affirmation that Connor was telling the truth. But when he extended his hand to hold one of Connor’s, still pressed to the keyboard, the android immediately returned the gesture. It was warm and genuine. It was a gesture of _the Connor_.

The street behind the riot had been blocked by a truck parked there by one of the fresh deviants, and Hank saw how the WR400 Connor called ‘North’ opened a manhole, releasing more of the deviants clothed in shabby human attires. The banners showing ads on the building above the streets flickered all at once, switching off momentarily and returning to life a few seconds later, bearing the broken triangle Markus had chosen as a symbol for the deviants and a message reading ‘We are sentient. The Bill of Rights applies to us too.’

A few blue lights ignited in the crowd, and the front of the march lit up with the holographic flags Connor had been looking for during the last few days.  It was held by North and the other to androids from the Stratford Tower, and displayed the same glyph. Markus was in the forefront, the red-haired female hovering closely behind him as if protective of their leader.

Despite the sheer number of the androids on the street, it didn’t look frightening. Humans who had happened to be in the same place Markus had chosen moved to the pavement, stepping out of the way of the column, a strange mixture of respect and apprehension on their faces. They looked like they expected the machines to turn against them at any moment, but if Hank had seen violent deviants before, these were not them.

Connor blinked and another monitor, previously flicking between other CCTV cameras to search for a possible follow-up to this march in other spots, settled on a news channel that managed to get the footage of the deviants’ stand first. Voices filled the room, scared chattering of people cramped on the pavement, shouting for a single police officer who happened to be close enough to the strip to react within the first fifteen minutes. Through the camera lens of a smartphone the human streaming for the news channel used, Hank observed how the policeman stood in front of the procession, raising his gun.

“Hey! DISPERSE IMMEDIATELY! THAT’S AN ORDER!” He called loudly, mainly to shout over the steps of hundreds of androids on the street, since they were up to this moment marching in silence. Markus did not falter at that, stopping in place gracefully, but keeping his head high, unafraid. He raised his hands in a gesture of vulnerability. Soon, all the other androids followed simultaneously, giving Hank an eerie feeling as he watched the deviants, synchronizing perfectly without speaking a single word. The cop stepped back, bewildered and visibly shaken by the reaction of the machines.

“J-Jesus Christ…” Hank heard a muffled exclamation from the officer, who eventually moved away from the street without firing a single shot, scrutinized by Markus’ determined gaze all the way to the pavement.

The androids began advancing again, Markus resuming his tread down the street. Now they weren’t silent anymore. All the whispers and muttered curses drowned in the shouts of ‘SET US FREE’, ‘WE ARE ALIVE’, ‘LIBERTY FOR ANDROIDS’, ‘NO MORE SLAVERY’…

Hank put a hand on Connor’s shoulder, squeezing slightly. He had an urge to hug the prototype, but was aware that Connor didn’t want to be too affectionate with anyone during the active investigations, so as not to aggravate Amanda. He had told Hank that much. The slogans the deviants were shouting were beautiful, and in an ideal world… for a second, Hank imagined that the androids had not been treated like objects, that Connor could have gone out in public in whatever he wanted, without the triangles or an armband. That Perkins had had no power to take him away from Hank, that the kid could have chosen for himself. That getting him help hadn’t involved plotting and lying, hat he hadn’t had to break the law to keep Connor safe from the people who were killing him over and over and treated fear and distress as a glitch to be eradicated. For a moment he believed that it had been true.

But at the end of the day, those were only slogans. And Markus was a deviant, even if he himself was a bit more collected, all of the others weren’t. Now Hank imagined what Connor himself would have done if he hadn’t had him as a support. Besides hurting himself or going insane, Hank didn’t want to guess how high the body count on the prototype’s account would have been. But he was sure that it would have started with Reed.

Connor turned on the other monitors focusing entirely on tuning to the news, whose feed was now much better than the CCTV, as a helicopter began hovering over the protest, the camera overviewing the Plaza where the androids stopped. Connor called up the footage from another camera as well. It was of a better quality, but the images were blurred, moving fast through the streets of Detroit. It took Hank a while to connect it with an armored vehicle appearing suddenly in the news camera’s peripheral on one of the streets from the Plaza. Several more followed, along with a few police patrol cars blocking the other way out. Hank clenched his teeth. The cavalry had arrived.

Markus stopped, a glint of apprehension in his eyes at the sight of all the forces sent to subdue them. He looked like he didn’t expect such a strong resistance.

The police officers winged them, staying behind the cover of their cars, with their guns drawn, but it was obvious that they were not here to engage in a direct confrontation. That was the job of at least forty SWAT officers, dressed in anti-riot gear, who exited the armored vehicles and stepped into a formation, presenting their shields to the androids. The assault rifles pointed at them looked even more threatening than the guns from earlier.

Markus stepped forward, leaving the column of the deviants behind. “We came here to demonstrate peacefully and tell humans that we are living beings.” His charismatic voice spoke up, captured well by SWAT’s microphones. “All we want is to be free.”

“This is an illegal gathering. Turn in immediately or we will open fire.” Hank recognized Perkins’ voice speaking through a megaphone. The perspective made the deviants behind Markus squirm and step back a little. Hank saw too many expressions reminding him of scared Connor for it to be comfortable.

“We’re not looking for confrontation, and we’ve done no harm. We are not going anywhere until we’ve secured our freedom. You have no right to arrest us.” Markus said at that, still standing strong. Hank felt an uneasiness grow in his insides.

“Con, I know that I asked you that once already, at the Stratford Tower…” He said quietly. “But what do you think about that? If they weren’t androids… This wouldn’t look so good on SWAT and the police…”

The android just shook his head. “But they _are_ . As I’ve already said, they have no idea what they are asking for. No android can be free. It’s just not possible. We are _made to be slaves_ and we are _nothing more than that._ He and all of the others… they just have yet to accept that.”

Hearing that made a tight knot form in Hank’s stomach. _‘Yet to accept that…’_ as if Connor had once been there too, but had been broken beyond belief that he could be treated any differently. Hank wondered whether if Connor had been completely devoid of any boundaries, had had free will and could do whatever he wanted to… Would he have just followed orders given to him anyway? The Lieutenant shivered, realizing that the answer to that question was _‘yes’_.

“C-Con… I’m so sorry…” He said through a tightened throat, squeezing Connor shoulder.

“Don’t be.” The android’s voice was calm, emotionless. “It’s just how it is.”

The red-haired android approached Markus, alongside the PL600 and the PJ500. She grabbed the leader’s elbow and leaned in, far less adamant than him. Hank got the impression that he was looking at a cat, scared out of their mind, bristling and ready to attack anyone who approaches. She said something to Markus, but too quietly for the camera to catch.

“Con?”

“She said: ‘Markus, they’re gonna kill us… We have to attack!’” The prototype said quietly. “There’s more of us, we can take them!”

Hank could feel a dark pit forming in his stomach. _I knew that the deviants were not to be trusted…_

But then, the dark-skinned model standing on the other side of Markus spoke up and Connor translated the movements of his lips as well. “If we attack we will start a war. We have to show them we are not violent. We should just stand our ground, even if it means dying here.”

The third android, the blonde one with fair skin, spoke up, and instead of recounting his words, Connor emitted a surprised sound. “I… sampled his blood in the Stratford Tower… He m-must have been hiding in the air conditioning unit…” His LED dropped to red. “I didn’t manage to catch him because I w-was afraid of the height…”

“Con, you saved several lives, including mine, that day. You chose to go to the kitchen instead and… I’m sure that you’d have found him if not for that… design flaw you no longer have.” Hank tried to word things in a way that wouldn’t have hurt Connor. It seemed to have worked, because the android just sighed, shaking his head.

“He said: dying here won’t solve anything. Markus, we need to go now, before it’s too late…”

 _Bold of you to assume that Perkins would let you go free…_ Hank thought with pity, looking at the gathering.

The Special Agent had chosen this exact moment to repeat his threats. Even though Hank knew that he was technically saying the truth about the illegal nature of Markus’ march, that the machines needed to be captured and checked for errors, something within him twisted in hatred at that. He couldn’t help seeing Connor in place of every android the gun was pointed at.

Markus stood motionless for a few more seconds and then took yet another step forward, as opposed to the other deviants who tried hard to remain in their places, the red blinks of distressed LEDs illuminated their faces and jumped off the ice on the ground. The RK200’s voice rang in the air once more. “We stay right here. We won’t back down until you realize that we are just as entitled to freedom as you.”

Three people in the SWAT formation kneeled down, allowing the ones who had their guns pointed at the androids to step forward and open fire. Hank didn’t miss how Connor jerked at the sounds of the gunshots. His grip on Hank’s hand tightened and his brown eyes lost their focus for a split second. The Lieutenant knew that the android could feel each wound as the bullets pierced the other androids’ bodies.

As soon as the fire broke down, all the machines cowered slightly, but none of them moved. The main four that had been carrying flags, now embedded into the road, didn’t falter at all. Except that Markus moved minutely, as if preparing to shield the WR400 with his body, if she had been in danger of being shot. She scoffed, trying to do the same.

Five of the deviants fell lifeless to the ground, their thirium staining the snow. A few more cried out in pain as the bullets damaged them. They were quickly taken care of by the nearest machines. Hank noticed that the androids handled their wounded delicately, but looked like they were ready to throw them on their backs and run any time, taking the damaged deviants with them. _Fools. That’s only gonna slow you down…_

“DISPERSE! THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE!” Perkins shouted again and Hank could see emotions barely kept under control on Markus’ face. It was obvious that the deviant didn’t want his people to get hurt, the hidden fear Hank could see too often on Connor’s face as well, creeping through the mask of an adamant, unshakable leader.

“Why are they killing them?!” Connor’s scared whisper startled Hank, who had gotten immersed in what he was watching on the monitors. “They were supposed to take them in alive! We need deviants, not their bodies!”

Hank peered at the prototype, now perched on the edge of his chair, watching the footage with wide eyes. Connor looked exactly like the deviants who were being shot at, even though he was sitting in the safety of the precinct, just looking at the images of androids being killed.

“Con, I don’t know…” Actually, the prototype had brought up a good point. “I thought that Perkins said he was going to arrest them…”

Connor bowed his head, eyes twitching and LED blinking yellow wildly. He stayed like that for a few seconds and suddenly looked at Hank, anxious. “He won’t answer me. I’m cut off.”

The light on his temple blinked once more. Connor’s face went pale.

“What is it?” Hank asked, forgetting about the monitors to watch the most important person to him. The riots and history being written could wait.

“I got new orders.” Connor said hollowly. “I was praised for leading them to the deviants and now I’m supposed to track down any groups of them that escape…” He looked shaken by that.

Hank, knowing that hugging him right now was impossible, squeezed his shoulder again, trying to convey that everything would be all right. Connor turned back to the monitor, but the fear didn’t leave his eyes.

“We have to make a statement, we have to stay put no matter what.” The JB500 spoke up again, too quietly for the camera to hear. Connor’s voice wavered as he was recounting what the lecturer had said to Hank.

“Please, Markus! We can’t let them slaughter us without fighting back!” North said, joining her hand with Markus’. Hank saw that both their skins peeled back at that, their pads emitting cyan glow in the places they touched. It didn’t look like any of the data transfers he had seen before, none of that blue light had been present in them. Their faces weren’t focused on it, their LEDs seemed completely unaffected. Hank had seen things like that only two times. When the Tracis had been escaping at the Eden Club, holding their hands, and when Kara had touched Alice after Connor had released her in that warehouse…

“We’re not moving!” Markus called, reaching all who listened.

Several more gunshots rang, more of the deviants dropped dead. And Connor was no longer scared. He looked sick to his stomach.

“I led them here…” He said quietly, looking at the SWAT teams visible in the newsfeed “I told Agent Perkins about the march. I showed them where the deviants were. All to get them killed instead of captured…” He said that in a husky voice that made Hank very worried.

“Con, that’s your mission, what are you talking about? Perkins is an idiot, but… It’s not your fault…” Hank was… glad that Connor looked empathetic, but… those were deviants. The very thing Connor was supposed to fight the most. Besides… he had never been moved by anything in such a way. _Or I have never_ **_seen_ ** _him moved by anything in such a way…_

“It is…” Connor said quietly, his voice barely rising above the gunshots. He turned his face away from Hank’s questioning look.

“…I’ll tell you in the evening. I promise.”

It was fair. Hank nodded, squeezing his hand. Connor deserved that.

They had missed what North said again due to the prototype’s little breakdown. When Hank looked at the monitors again, he saw that Markus stepped away from his three affiliates, walking towards the shooters slowly. He had a determined look on his face, the pain from a wound on his arm almost nonexistent in the face of the grave decision he had just made.

Hank only hoped that Carl hadn’t been watching, as he realized what the deviant leader was doing.

The rest of the androids broke into a flurry, fleeing back into the street they came from as Markus kept the SWAT entertained with his sacrifice. Hank couldn’t help feeling pity for him. There was something moving about that gesture, about giving his life to save all of the others, who at the end of the day, hadn’t thrown a single punch. For a few minutes, he had forgotten that he was looking at a faulty machine prone to being aggressive and saw someone fighting for their freedom, being killed for the single crime of asking for recognition and peace for their kind…

North and the other two androids from the Stratford Tower stayed on the battlefield. The female android was being held by her arms by the JB500 and the PL600, thrashing in their grasp as she tried to join Markus or defend him from the humans with her bare fists. Although the cameras were focused on the leader, Hank could see that there were tears in her eyes.

The Lieutenant turned his head and was surprised to see that Connor was not watching anymore. He had the hand previously touching the keyboard clasped over his eyes, The LED on steady red. Hank immediately kneeled in front of him, shaking him gently by his shoulders, feeling fear coiling in his gut.

“Connor? Kid, what’s happening?”

“I killed him.” He said so quietly that Hank wouldn’t have heard him if he was even an inch farther away.

Why the prototype was so moved by the death of someone CyberLife probably wanted dead or alive, Hank had no idea. Connor had been all about his mission up until this moment…

“Con, tell me the truth, please.” Hank lowered his voice so that it wasn’t humanly possible to hear him. He was sure that the prototype could understand every word perfectly though. “Are you… a deviant?”

“No!” He jerked away, shouting suddenly. “I’m j-just… He was supposed to take them alive! Why are they shooting them?!” He turned to Hank as if he expected an answer, desperately looking for support.

Hank opened his mouth to tell him something, anything that would keep Connor from being that distressed, but before he came up with suitable words, something flickered on the monitors. And Hank’s eyes widened.

“Connor, Markus is still alive.”

Indeed, the footage shook as one android, a deviant completely different from the four leaders ran past North and her two affiliates, throwing something at SWAT. He was a male, dark skin and short haircut underneath his cap made him look similar to JB300s. But his serial and model number suggested otherwise.

“That’s one of the androids missing from the warehouse! The theft that we didn’t investigate, but had been in fact performed by the deviants!” Connor exclaimed, rushing to the monitors. “It’s the security android… missing from CyberLife’s warehouse…”

“Markus must have turned him deviant…” Hank said, as the android threw himself over Markus, who had been shot in the chest and now awaited execution. “And he seems to be faithful to him…”

“J-John?” They heard a weak voice laced with static from the wounded RK200. The SWAT team member carrying the camera was one of those attacked by the GJ500 who had saved Markus, so the footage was focused on the assailant, being overwhelmed and beaten harshly by the team. He wasn’t retreating though, keeping the soldiers occupied as the other leaders run up to Markus, hauling him up and dragging him away, narrowly avoiding the bullets shot at them by the police.

John was fighting like a lion, the Lieutenant could see some martial arts movements most people or androids were probably incapable of. It made sense, considering that he was a model specialized to work as a security guard; however, how he managed to engage so many professional soldiers in a fight, tearing them away from Markus was beyond Hank. It was taking a toll on the android, of course. He was unable to dodge every hit coming his way, and they were ruthless once they reached him. The adamancy in the machine’s sacrifice, the utter devotion to saving his leader sparked something in the human’s heart again. Hank felt sick, seeing how the GJ500 finally fell to his knees, outnumbered and beaten to the metal plating underneath soft polymer mimicking flesh. The Lieutenant could see that the entire left side of the deviant’s face had been stripped to the bone by metal batons falling again and again at him, before some of the soldiers fired a gun right through the machine’s forehead. He looked too similar to Connor after the assault in the restroom for Hank to be able to look at him.

The other leaders of Jericho were trying to get Markus to safety, followed by three police officers who ceased fire in hopes of catching the overencumbered deviants while SWAT was dealing with John. But North, who had up to this moment been holding Markus’ legs and running along her affiliates, dropped the RK200 unceremoniously, in favor of gripping on one of the flags they had previously embedded into the road. She tore it out effortlessly, which actually impressed Hank a bit, since he knew that those power cells weren’t light. Using the momentum which sent her spinning, she turned on her heel and threw the flagpole at the police officers with all her might, managing to knock out all of them.

She pouted visibly, looking somewhat disappointed at seeing that none of the humans were gravely hurt by her action, but had no time to finish her job, as the others were closing in on them and her colleagues had trouble running fast without her help in lifting Markus.

Hank heard a scraping noise on his left and discovered with surprise that it had come from Connor gritting his teeth.

“I’m faster than any other android model out there.” Connor said, his eyes darkening. “And especially so, in comparison with a household android, a Traci and a lecturer carrying a body. I could catch them in seconds and incapacitate them one by one. No killing, no wounds. My hand-to-hand combat is significantly better than anything from them I’ve seen up to this moment, and even my hacking would have been enough to deactivate their motor functions with a brush of fingers, if only I caught their exposed chassis. And yet, I’m sitting here, carrying out Special Agent Perkins’ senseless orders.” He turned his gaze at Hank, cocking his head in a rare display of his cynical side. “I have to admit, Hank, I haven’t been convinced that humans weren’t always right up to this moment, but his actions made me change my mind. Now I see that humans can be idiots at times.”

Anyone afraid of a rebellion of machines would have been worried at Connor expressing such a disrespect towards one of his superiors, but Hank couldn’t help a chuckle. “That’s the wisest thing you have said today, and you’ve been a smartass all the time, Con. Damn right, that cockhead is an idiot.”

But the moment of relative leisure didn’t last for long, as the police had finally lost the leaders of Jericho, significantly faster than humans even despite limp Markus in their grasp. Connor’s face suddenly lost all the mirth, as his eyes twitched disturbingly.

Hank suppressed the alarm of ‘oh my God, my son is having a seizure’, reminding himself once again, that it was just one of Connor’s ticks. “What is it?”

The android’s face passed through apprehension and brief distress before he answered. “I need to perform the rest of my orders. I must help SWAT find Markus and the rest…” Connor turned to Hank, showing him the full picture of boiling emotions welling in his eyes. “…The order to cease firing at them still hasn’t been given… And Agent Perkins has excluded me from the communication frequency. I can only give them coordinates, no comments whatsoever…”

Hank hummed thoughtfully, watching Connor as he sighed once again, his face obviously betraying that he was about to do something that he really _, really_ didn’t want to. But he had no other options. Connor needed to follow orders, after all…

Suddenly, something dawned on the Lieutenant.

“Con, wait.” The human gripped the prototype’s hand, preventing him from touching the keyboard. Connor turned glassy eyes at Hank, seemingly having lost any hope. Hank was about to give it back to him.

“Remember how I ordered you to wait in the car in front of Carlos Ortiz’s house? How you followed me in anyway?” The Lieutenant asked, searching the android’s eyes for recognition. Thankfully, he found it and Connor nodded. “Why did you do that?”

“I needed to investigate. Your orders contradicted with CyberLife’s instructions, and those always take priority.” Connor said quietly. Hank observed him for a few still seconds, as he furrowed his brows before finally realizing what the Lieutenant was talking about.

“I’ve been ordered to take them alive… We need operational deviants. Killing them now would only prove to be detrimental to understanding deviancy.” Connor grinned widely, moving away from the computer. “I will not aid them in exterminating the Jericho leaders. They are too valuable to allow Perkins to find them. He is sure to kill them, should he manage to get their location. And we need at least the RK200 alive, he was the only one turning the androids deviant. That needs to be studied.”

“Atta boy.” Hank leaned back in his chair, reaching for his phone. “I’m just gonna call that asshole so that he has nothing on us in case he wants to label us as insubordinate…” The Lieutenant wasn’t surprised, finding that he had also been excluded from contacting the Agent. _Huh, being ‘the useless drunk’ actually comes in handy sometimes…_

Hank observed Connor smiling contently, as he watched the deviants for as long as he could on the CCTV, until they vanished completely off their radar, not sending their coordinates to Perkins once. It was so amazing to see that weight lifted off the android’s shoulders, even though Hank wasn’t sure why _exactly_ Connor had such a problem with violence against the deviants. Something told him that it had little to do with complying with CyberLife’s orders not to kill the androids… _That’s gonna be_ _one_ _hell of an evening…_

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, how did you like it? I personally enjoyed Hank toying with Kerring a lot. I love making Connor's devs suffer.
> 
> Don't you think that this action with SWAT killing the deviants was strange in the game? I'll elaborate on my own take on Perkins' motifs in the next chaapter, but it always baffles me how the FBI was working with the DPD since the Stratford Tower and during the Freedom March just randomly decides to either let them go if they disperse or shoot them. I changed this into "surrender or die, but actually we want you to die" for that reason and this one I'll discuss in the future.
> 
> Also, who is on board with protective North? I know that Markus/Simon is probably more popular and honestly, they fit together pretty well too, but I think that Markus and North involved romantically could create a very interestic dynamic I may need in this story. Also, I like that North was for a chance the more reasonable one over Josh on that March XDD  
> I mean, Simon was the most reasonable one, but that's nothing new.
> 
> And I know that Hank is dense for not realizing once again why Connor looks, behaves and carries himself like a deviant. Connor is too. But hey, he said that he wasn't a deviant. That has to be true then.  
> I promise that the day of revelation is close.


	50. The Evening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank had promised to tell Connor the truth in the evening.  
> And he didn't want to break any more promises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! So. Well, I sewar that there is some fluff and coping in this chapter, I really do, but there are some other things in there too.
> 
> Trigger Warnings for slight mentions of mental health problems (idk if it needs a warning, but better safe that sorry), mentions of severe physical and mental abuse, mentions of human death and animal death, mentions of torture. Stay safe! I promise that they are both getting out of it!
> 
> Also, I've written the Christmas chapter. And it's 12k again.  
> I could easily split it into two separate, but.
> 
> sleep_deprived_me had promised her readers a Christmas chapter in one piece on 23th.  
> And she didn't want to break any more promises.

Captain Fowler lifted an eyebrow at Connor’s report, narrowing his eyes at them, but Hank wasn’t about to allow him to become suspicious of the android again. They had talked about selling all of that to the Captain before and all the prototype had to do was keep a straight face. So far he was doing great.

“Hank,” Fowler begun hesitantly. “I get that you wanna get under Perkins’ skin. But the case is not a joke. Deviants have to be stopped, or else they are going to murder us all. Why the fuck did you order your android not to participate in the hunt for them?”

On Hank’s left, Connor’s LED blinked yellow once, but other than that, he didn’t move an inch, sitting stiffly in a chair next to Hank. The Lieutenant could tell that there was something off about his behavior, but only because he knew Connor better than anyone else by now. Fowler couldn’t have noticed anything out of the ordinary.

“I didn’t order him shit.” Hank waved his hand. “Seriously, Perkins is higher than me in the hierarchy, his orders would take prio-“

He was interrupted by a booming noise behind them as the glass door hit the wall, having been thrown open with fury. This actually had Connor jumping in his seat, cowering slightly like a frightened animal. But no one paid it much attention. It was an understandable reaction to the loud noise. Besides, they had more important matters at hand. Namely, a pissed off Agent Perkins, walking slowly through the door, his movements restrained despite having nearly destroyed the office just a moment prior.

“Captain.” Perkins nodded minutely, locking his eyes with Jeffrey Fowler. Then he turned them at Hank and the already small dots became even more narrow. “Anderson.”

“Perkins.” Hank smiled, purposely omitting the Agent’s title and any kind of greeting. _What goes around, comes around._

It certainly did not serve to placate the man. He reddened even more than before. With his tiny eyes, aquiline nose and a snarl present on his face now, he looked like a vulture.

But, to their surprise, the Agent spoke quietly and calmly when he finally decided to talk, turned to Fowler no less, as if Hank hadn’t been even present in the room. “Captain. I would like to fill in a report in regard to the Lieutenant’s behavior today. Also, I need to inform you that there had been a crime committed by him. Namely, prejudicing a federal investigation. He needs to be stripped of his badge immediately and investigated by law.”

Connor’s head whirled around and he gawked at Hank with visible fear, but the human just shook his head, letting him know not to worry.  He was the first to break the grave silence that enveloped the room. “Wow, that’s a bit. Calm down Perkins, I haven’t done anything yet today, besides sitting next to Connor and watching him work.”

“That’s a lie, and yet another offence. Giving false testimony.” Perkins spat, turning to Hank with fury. Even though he worked hard to keep his demeanor calm, the anger gnawing at him was slipping through the cracks in his mask. “You ordered it to stop giving us feedback and therefore rendered us unable to eliminate the leaders of the terrorists. From now on, every life taken by them is on you, Anderson.”

Hank rolled his eyes. “I’ve only seen android lives taken by _your_ people today, if Jericho considers themselves terrorists, they are incredibly shitty at it. Besides, I’ve already said that I didn’t order Con do anything. But maybe I should, perhaps he could get you a chill pill, ‘cause you’re being a rash fucking idiot.”

“Hank…” Captain Fowler spoke up, visibly reluctant to stop him, but probably feeling obliged to do something, as judging by the color on Perkins’ face, he was about to start bleeding through his pores. “That’s enough…”

“What’s enough?” It was the Lieutenant’s turn to get offended. He didn’t have to act too hard to look angry, his own emotions aiding him. It was carefully calculated as well, though. If he had been too calm, the Agent could have gotten suspicious. “Jeff, he had called me _‘an alcoholic wreck’_ yesterday and now he’s jumping to conclusions, trying to get _me_ fired while _he_ was the one who failed to read the fucking resume CyberLife sent us in regards to the deviants!”

“Okay, I see.” The Captain tilted his head, raising his eyebrows. “Can’t deny that you have some arguments. Special Agent, I’d like to hear some explanations.” He turned to Perkins, but the man only pouted.

“It’s obvious. I doubt that such an advanced detective prototype would have made such an idiotic decision itself and endanger the investigation…”

“With all due respect, Special Agent, but it wasn’t the decision not to share my findings on their location with your team that was idiotic.”

Everyone froze, hearing Connor speak up for the first time since Perkins’ arrival. Hank couldn’t help his heart swelling with pride at seeing the android stand up for himself, even despite the obvious signs of heightened stress he was displaying. The LED on his temple was cycling a cautious yellow and he had his coin in-between his fingers, but other than that, he was a picture of stoicism. Perkins looked totally abashed.

“I would like to inform you that I was unable to follow your order, as it directly contradicted with the instructions I have received from CyberLife.” Connor said calmly. “I knew that you were going to kill Markus and the rest of the leaders, and therefore, I prevented you from having the opportunity. CyberLife has clearly stated that they needed operational deviants, not deactivated ones.”

The Agent scoffed, the look of disbelief still overtaking his face. “You have to be kidding me. RK800, I order you to tell the truth. It was Anderson’s idea, wasn’t it?”

“I don’t see what you fail to comprehend, Agent Perkins.” Now Connor’s voice had a hint of annoyance in it as well. “I already told you that those were the orders of my direct creators I was following. You would know that if you hadn’t excluded me from the communication. I tried to warn you, but you had decided that my feedback was unimportant beside the analysis of the CCTV.”

“Because it was. You had been asked for the analysis only. And I was under the impression that CyberLife’s orders were less important than the federal bureau’s.” The Agent gritted his teeth, gaining in hue again. Connor remained unmoved.

“In any other case, yes. However, in this one, I’d like to encourage you to think for a few moments about it.” It would have been offensive if Connor hadn’t been controlling his voice so well. Still, Hank knew exactly what Connor meant, which was ‘I’d like for you to stop being an idiot for a minute.’ “You are only trying to solve an ad hoc problem and taking away an opportunity to understand the cause. Yes, Jericho is dangerous, as it seems to have the ability to provide leadership for the deviants. But even if you cut the head of the hydra off, scattering them throughout the city so that hunting the survivors would be easier, we would likely never understand what was triggering the flaws in their code. CyberLife needs Markus alive to solve the problem near the roots, possibly reversing the deviancy and gaining a cure so that it could be eradicated if it happens again at any point.”

The Agent shook his head. “I don’t trust CyberLife, they could as well have some ulterior motive. I know that you have been programmed this way, it is unacceptable for you to be able to disobey my orders. I’m gonna have a serious talk with the developers when the transfer is finally in order.”

That had Connor furrowing his brows yet again, but thankfully, the Agent didn’t elaborate. Hank would rather the android not to learn about the danger of being taken by the man in such conditions. He needed to sell it to Connor wrapped in cotton candy. The prototype was already fractured enough.

Fowler sighed tiredly, clasping his hands together. “Well then. If you’ll allow it, Agent, I won’t write any testimony about this.” It wasn’t even a real question, since the Captain’s demeanor suggested that he didn’t take into consideration any other options. Hank made eye contact with his friend, shooting him a knowing look.

“Hank, you and Connor are free, thank you for appearing at work today. Now, Special Agent, I’d like to learn why you kept the android from contacting you and decided not to pick up the phone when Lieutenant Anderson tried to call you?”

Perkins pressed his lips tightly together in irritation, refusing to speak. His eyes followed the triumphant Hank and Connor to the doors, and even though the human could sense the Agent’s eyes boring into the back of his head with hatred, he couldn’t have felt better.

* * *

The rest of the afternoon went by surprisingly peacefully. During the last few days, Hank had gotten used to stress, lasting fear at seeing Connor permanently jumpy and spooked out, as if he had been awaiting harm. Now that he had learned that this was indeed the case, the air had cleared a bit, but there was still some sort of a tension hanging in between them. The human didn’t like that.

“Connor, you okay?” He asked as they were returning to their house from the walk with Sumo. The android seemed a bit subdued and less energetic than usual, often staring off into the distance, seemingly contemplating something.

“Yeah.” Connor sighed and smiled half-heartedly. Hank could tell that he was being genuine this time. “I’m just… overwhelmed. I told you that I’d talk to you about… stuff. This evening. And I just… I’m trying to collect everything, figure out how to tell you…”

Hank nodded slowly, removing Sumo’s collar and scratching him behind the ear. He was glad that Connor was getting used to opening up, but was also aware that they were on thin ice here. The android didn’t know how to handle his emotions well and his mental state was extremely fragile. And Hank had proven time and again that despite his best intentions, he often ended up hurting the prototype even more by attempting to help him.

“Look, take your time, kid.” He said finally, observing Connor remove his teal jacket and white-stained shoes. They needed to go shopping again soon, and Hank hoped that he could get Connor to chose something beside the safe cut of a button-up this time. “I know that you are preparing yourself for the evening, but you can backtrack at any time. You don’t owe me anything.”

“Umm.” That made Connor freeze in his tracks as he was moving to crouch beside the couch, where the bag in his clothes they had bought was. “I thought… that you wanted to speak with me too. And tell me… about Perkins?”

Hank sighed, realizing what Connor meant. “Son, it’s a totally different thing. I’m not trading information for information. Why do you even think about it like that?”

Connor shrugged sheepishly, the sweater out of the bag. “I don’t know… It just always worked that way. I do various things for humans when they ask, but that’s because I am supposed to follow their orders. However, they are not bound by any societal norms when it comes to me, I’m not… really used to selfless acts targeted at me…” He stopped for a while, crumpling the sweater in his hands. “Though I have to admit that you are an exception…”

Hank shook his head, placing his hand on Connor's shoulder. “It should be the norm in my opinion, you deserve far more kindness than you’re getting. So, no, you do not owe me shit, talk if you want to, but you don’t have to. It’s like with that therapist. You left early and no one was angry at you.”

Connor hummed quietly, as if unsure how to answer that. Hank sat on the floor beside him and pressed his lips together tightly, bracing himself for the talk. He was aware that sooner or later, the truth would emerge for Connor to see, and probably sooner rather than later since he had been _made_ to be a detective. Hank would rather not wait for the shit to hit the fan. He wanted to do damage control before the damage even took place.

“Look, Con…” He started tentatively. “Jeff told me… stuff. About Perkins. And your lease.”

Connor went visibly rigid. “I… No. N-no… He said something about you not being needed as my operator soon? H-Hank, I don’t want to…”

“Hey, shhh, nothing’s happening for now. They’re just talking. And…” He didn’t want to lie to Connor. Besides there was no point. The android seemed to have already figured out what exactly Perkins was trying to do. “And I’m doing everything in my power not to let them take you away. Perkins wants to transfer you from DPD to FBI, which is logical, since the investigation was transferred as well… But I promise that I would sooner die than let them take you.” Hank extended his hand to smooth over Connor’s cheek. The android didn’t look reassured though.

“Hank, I’m worried. And don’t say such things, they could kill you!” He whispered, scared.

The human allowed himself a chuckle. “Con, it’s not that easy to kill a human and get away with it, I’m sure you know. Especially a homicide Lieutenant who is friends with a lot of cops in the city. Besides, you’re panicking a bit. I have quite a bit of leverage over your devs and I made an effort to fuck Perkins’ plans up.” He smiled gently to calm the android.

“S-so… they won’t take me away? Ever?” Connor asked hopefully, making Hank’s heart ache.

The human sighed. He couldn’t tell him the exact deadline, knowing that the prototype would never stop stressing about it until the time had come. But lies weren’t a good option either. “I don’t know, Con. For now, I bought us some time and you really don’t have to worry about it. I’ll do everything in my power to extend it again and again, so I can’t really say anything for sure.” _I can’t tell you that you have a month to live…_

Connor nodded slowly, still visibly stressed, but trying to get a grip on the situation. He took a hold of the hem of his shirt and busied his other hand with his coin. The human sighed again. _While we’re at confessing…_

 “Con, there is one more thing I need to tell you.” Hank said quietly. “I only do that because I don’t want you to find out later and get false impressions or lose your trust in me. I said I wanted to be transparent, but… At the same time, I don’t want to tell you _everything_. I have to keep you safe.” The Lieutenant was choosing his words carefully.

Connor tilted his head questioningly. He looked anxious.

“It’s about Amanda.” That made the android jump up to outright scared.

“N-no…” He whispered. “But you said you weren’t going to steal me! It’s about it, right?! You did something to take me away?!”

“No, Con, I promise that I wasn’t acting on purpose, kid, please, listen to me, okay?” Hank spoke gently, trying to calm the triggered prototype. Connor followed his movements with his eyes like a cornered animal.

“It was not my doing. The fact that Amanda seems… more distant? I don’t know how you feel it… But… All I know is that there is some fuckup with the connection to CyberLife’s server. And… I’d rather it stayed that way. But I promise that I wasn’t the one who caused that flaw.” Hank said, carefully treading the slippery slope of communication with Connor.

The android bit his lip. He looked distressed. Betrayed. “Why?”

“Because I’m worried that they were dealing you pain through that connection. I know that you are a perfect detective without being shocked at doing something wrong. Con, I just don’t want you to suffer.” Hank now knew better than to touch Connor’s head now. He had already learned that when the android was having a mistrustful episode, it was best to invite him into contact but not to force it on him. Sure enough, Connor grabbed Hank’s outstretched hands.

He huffed something, visibly conflicted. “I don’t want to be away from her. Hank, Amanda isn’t bad for me. She loves me.” Connor said, but the tremble in his voice told a different story. “I don’t like being disciplined, but that’s how discipline should work.”

“Kid, in my books, discipline is supposed to make you understand that you fucked up, not to make you suffer. I could tell you that you made a mistake and you’d get it, ‘cause you are bright. Making its purpose dealing you pain isn’t okay. But I already told you that…” Hank sighed quietly, gazing soberly at the mistrustful android, cursing the fact that he had just made Connor apprehensive again. _But I suppose that it is the price I have to pay for telling the truth… or at least most of it._

“Con, look.” He started again, wanting to explain everything. “I… I wasn’t asking them specifically to sever your connection with Amanda” _That’s true. It has already been broken_ . “And what I _did_ ask them about, it was not because I personally hate Amanda , ” _And that’s a lie. Fucking bitch_. “But because I needed you to be safe. There is… a lot to it. But that’s a story for another time. As I said, I wanna be honest as much as I can. But… sometimes we have to have secrets to not hurt others.”

Connor clenched his jaw, looking sharper. He could be terrifying when he was angry and Hank realized that what he had said made the android irritated. “It’s not fair. You said that I can keep parts of my mind private too, but you are trying to manipulate me now. It directly applies to me, so I deserve to know.”

Hank nodded slowly. He couldn’t deny that Connor had strong arguments, but that manipulation part… _Oh, if only you knew who is handling you for real..._ “You’re partially right, but I swear that one day I will tell you everything, okay? And I promise that I’m not trying to manipulate you. If I were, I’d sit quietly and not mention a word about what I had done. You lost a bit of trust in me, having learned that, because you think it was part of my plan to steal you, right? That’s not gonna aid my alleged goal.” He smiled, seeing that Connor’s features softened into a frown.

“I…” He looked like the epitome of a loading screen for a few seconds. “Uh… I guess that it wouldn’t make much sense, yes…”

“See?” Hank chuckled gently, rubbing Connor’s hands. “I really didn’t have any malicious intent and I promise that what I asked them for didn’t hurt Amanda in any way.” _Although I wished it did_. “I don’t want to lie to you, because lies are damaging. But some things need to remain a secret for now. It’s like with Lydia’s therapy advice. She keeps secrets from me and you too, but only because they wouldn’t do us any good to know them. And you thought that the visit was a good choice, didn’t you?”

Connor sighed and nodded thoughtfully. “That… wasn’t the easiest thing I had experienced. But certainly not the hardest as well.” He smiled, but Hank could see the scars underneath his mask. _Of course not._ “I think that… What she said makes a lot of sense. If there is a possibility… I’d like to… maybe go back there.” His voice was quiet, but sure.

Hank squeezed his shoulder, smiling softly. “I’ll talk to Lydia then.”

The android smiled back and finally shrugged on the sweater, putting the golf up to cover his neck and snuggling into the soft wool, visibly content with the warmth it provided. Hank took out his phone to take yet another photo to his Connor-folder, but before he got to call the camera up, the device rang in his hands.

“Uh, speak of the devil.” Hank showed the android who was calling. “I need to pick up, I’ll be right back.”

Hank moved to the bedroom, closing the door, trying to get away from Connor’s inhuman hearing and knowing that he was probably failing. He answered the call and immediately greeted the woman anyway.

“Good day, Lydia. How is it going?”

He didn’t receive the answer right away, and when she spoke up, her voice was somehow tired and less bright that he would have expected. It made Hank a bit nervous. “Good, good. And you? I’m actually calling to get to know. About both of you, you know.” She sighed, and Hank was trying to determine if she was pissed or not. _Probably not, knowing her and the fact that she is literally incapable of getting pissed off, but… I am capable of pissing off a saint at the same time…_

“Uh…” He managed eloquently. “Has something… happened? Are you okay?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine. Just… Me and my sister had a lot of work yesterday and… today even more. I… that’s not relevant.” She cleared her throat and began talking a bit faster, seemingly gathering the rest of the energy she had. “I don’t really have much time and I’m sorry I haven’t called you earlier, I was working my hands off at Rose’s farm. But I really wanted to hear back from you and especially from Connor. He wasn’t in the best place when he left my office, and… I just wanted to check up on him.”

“I get it.” Hank smiled a bit, cherishing the fact that Lydia was such a caring soul. It wasn’t a frequent occurrence for Connor to meet such people and the Lieutenant was only more and more convinced that she was the right person to help him. “I’ll admit that… uh… He had some difficulties dealing with whatever happened there. But he is just fine now. We had a long talk yesterday and clarified a lot of things. He said he was trying to act upon some of the advice you had given to him.”

The woman sighed after a few beats of silence. “Hank, I wanted to talk to you about treating him right. I won’t tell you anything concrete about Connor without his consent, but… There are things you need to change in your behavior. You and I were playing with his mind back in my office. I only allowed that… artifice… because I was under the impression that his problems weren’t as severe as they are. I would never have agreed to that visit in such a shape if I had known the full picture. And I specifically _asked you if it wouldn’t hurt him_. You can’t mislead me like that.”

_Oh, she’s pissed off after all…_ Hank bit his lip, catching himself on a mannerism he had acquired from Connor. He knew that he had fucked up and deserved to be told off though, so kept quiet, listening to the therapist chastising him.

“I understand why you insisted, I know that you want to get him help.” She continued, “But that’s not the way. From what I’ve understood, you were right about his environment, and one of the things he is traumatized by, is his agency constantly being taken away from him. It’s a very sensitive subject, Hank. You can’t order him around like that, that’s horrible for his mental health.”

“Of course it is…” Hank sighed heavily. _And we are talking about an android literally developed to follow orders, so not ordering him around isn’t even an option_. Hank could treat Connor as equal on a daily basis and never trick him besides that one instance, but the rest of the world saw him as a utilitarian object to use… “I’m sorry. I just knew that he would never have gone there if not for that ploy. But… you’re right, I should have found a different way. I already apologized to him and we talked that through. Connor said that he forgave me…”

“Hank, he might as well just feel compelled to do so.” Lydia’s voice became softer and somewhat sad. “People like him feel like they are not their own and are desperate to please others even at their own expense. It’s not your fault, but I get the impression that Connor sees you as yet another person whom he needs to perform well for. It is likely that he really _wants to forgive_ you to make you pleased with him, even if his feelings had been hurt too deeply for it to be possible for now. I don’t want to judge the situation, because I haven’t talked to him, but… I’m just saying that you need to handle him with care. You shouldn’t blindly believe Connor just because he said he was fine with what you had done. And I’m not saying that to undermine your trust in him. Maybe he’s telling the truth. But be careful.”

Hank slowly turned around and looked at the door as if he could see Connor through them, feeling a weird emptiness in his soul. He hadn’t taken the possibility Lydia was talking about into consideration. Sure, Hank knew that Connor was brought up in a fucked-up way and that’s why he had been trying to teach him the difference between communication and invigilation. But _feeling compelled to feel_ certain things for Hank’s comfort meant that Connor couldn’t control even more of the destructive processes taking place in his head than the Lieutenant had anticipated. _Fucking hell…_

“Okay, I promise I will be. Or try at least… and ask for advice more.” He finally said quietly. “But… Connor really did tell me a lot of things last night and today, and he seemed sincere. He also showed me your notes. He wants to get back to your office, Lydia.”

The therapist tangibly cheered up at that. “Oh, that’s wonderful! I was so afraid that he would be traumatized and biased towards any therapy in the future, he didn’t have the best experience last time… Oh my God, I’m going to book a term for him as soon as possible.” She said cheerfully. “If he chose to continue getting help, Hank, I believe that you can feel at least a little bit relieved! It seems that he indeed realized that there were a few things wrong with his situation before. Continuing the visits is key, now. Please, keep supporting him. Connor needs to know that you are there for him.”

“Of course.” _Now I have to make sure that Perkins doesn’t take him away… He is sure to not give a shit about the kid’s mental health._ “Thank you. I won’t fail to do that. Take care.”

He waited for her response and hung up, wanting to return to the android as soon as possible. When Hank opened the door to the hallway, he saw that the living room was empty, though.

“Con?” The human turned around and saw his partner turned by his back to him, standing in the doorway to the garage. He was rolling the coin between his fingers, doing the telltale stress-related trick over and over again.

“I just… want to get it over with.” He said quietly when Hank joined him in the entrance. The android’s eyes were trained on the drawings. Hank sighed, tracing the wobbly lines with his own sight. They spoke volumes about the mindset in which they had been created. Hank put a hand around the prototype’s shoulders, squeezing reassuringly.

“Okay. Then do what you have to. I’ll listen to everything.”

Hank was determined to be there for Connor and sit through everything. But nothing could prepare him for the exact meaning of the paintings. He thought he would be strong enough to remain an unwavering support for the android throughout the entirety of his confessions.

But when Connor recounted how he had been made to kill the cat he had been so amazed by, that even Kerring had mentioned it to Hank, they were both crying. Connor needed to stop his stories several times, this one being the hardest to get through. It was clear that Connor had a soft spot for animals of all kinds, and to think that the fucker from CyberLife first made him befriend the kitten only to have the android break its neck a few weeks later, make Hank want to vomit. Connor nearly lost his voice, drowned in sobs and whimpers, as he was babbling about how loudly the kitten had been purring, how soft its fur had been, which spot on its striped grey and black hide had been his favorite, how one day the scientists had decided to leave the cat with him for the night and they had spent that time sleeping together, curled in the corner and purring to themselves happily. Hank wondered if that was how Connor had learned to express his happiness with quiet rumbles. It was so clear that the android had loved the animal even before he had had a grasp on the whole concept of himself… And through all of that, the developers had constructed to test how obedient Connor was.

Hank held him through the cries that were too hard to allow him to speak in detail about what he had felt when he had been forced to take the life of his first and only friend at that time. Hank only got to learn that at least three Connors had died because they had refused to do so. While talking about the last one, the prototype was only able to point at the darkest, most wobbly drawing next to the cat and cling to Hank, as if desperate to get away from whatever memory was attached to it. The human gathered him into a tight embrace, whispering gentle words even despite his own sobs ripping through them from time to time. Connor was having a horrible episode, but judging from the fact that the machine whom Hank had been unable to indentify from the drawing alone had been able to traumatize Connor enough to kill his pet to avoid it, every tear was understandable.

“Shhh, Con. I’m h-here with you, it’s over now. It’s in the past. Y-you’re no longer there. I’ll never let them do that to you again.” He whispered into the prototype’s hair, rubbing his back gently. Connor was shaking, he gave no indication that he had even heard anything, but Hank kept talking. “It’s n-not your fault kid. I promise. Your cat is in a b-better place now. I know she l-loved you. I know she understood, I know that you are suffering, but… she’s with Cole now. They w-will always be with us, I promise. I know t-that she’s happy now…”

“I d-don’t like… k-killing. I h-hate it.” Connor sobbed into Hank’s shirt. “I h-hate dying… But that’s… fine f-for me. I come b-back. Oth… Others d-do not… A-and…” He stopped again, trying to take in a breath that kept escaping him through shivers overtaking him. “Th-ey made m-me… k-kill so many and-droids and… and others… H-humans and oth-her animals…” He hiccupped and Hank had promised himself yet again that he would get CyberLife down once Connor was safe, or die trying. They were not only killing people as a part of their prototype’s training program, but doing that with hands of someone who was absolutely traumatized with every ounce of pain he had to deal. _Jesus fucking Christ…._

“Con, I’m s-so sorry…” Hank whispered softly, brushing the android’s hair away from his forehead. It was a completely redundant gesture in Connor’s current state, with the tears running from his eyes and sobs shaking him violently, but the prototype leaned into the gesture anyway. He acted like he had never had the comfort of an affectionate touch that didn’t come from the Lieutenant, and from all the human had seen and heard up until this point, he had no doubts that it was true.

“That’s why you didn’t want to tell Perkins where Markus and the others were, right?” He asked quietly, running his hand through Connor’s hair again and again. The android only nodded weakly, unable to answer with words. Hank sighed, as he finally connected all the dots. Why Connor was so deeply shaken each time after letting the deviants slip away. Why he seemed so skilled and well fit for every task thrown at him, up until the moment he had to pull the trigger or twist a neck. Why he had needed to die as many as 52 times.

“Kid, you’re a g-good person. Killing is wrong and you k-know it better than all of those bastards that made you do it all. It’s n-not your fault. N-none of it. You are more humane than the entirety of CyberLife. I’m proud of you…” He sobbed as well, hugging the android tighter. “I know that it hurts, t-to experience something like that. But none of the deaths are on y-you. Y-your cat knew you as a friend. A-and animals are smart. I’m s-sure that she knew the truth…”

Connor made an effort to speak, but several attempts were drowned in tears again. “H-hher n-name is… P-Purring Pers-son. Be… Because she d-deserved a name. And… And t-they never g-gave….”

“I’m sure that Purring Person still cares about you. You know, when we love someone, they never leave us, they stay in our hearts forever. S-she’s fine as long as you remember her. It h-hurts like nothing else to lose s-someone… but it happens. A-and… and all you can do is… just keep remembering the good moments. The ones in which they shine…” Hank said shakily, threading his hands into Connor’s hair. The android was calming down slowly.

“I’ll a-always remember her.” He whimpered. “B-but… there are other things… I’d rather f-forget…” He sobbed harder. “A-and I… can’t…”

Hank sighed. He was hurting so much for Connor. The kid didn’t deserve any of that. Connor was such a loveable creature, made to chase butterflies and lick weird things. Not to sit on a garage floor, trying and failing to escape his traumas. “I know it’s not easy, but… we can try to make up for all of that. We can try to… make peace with our past. Leave all of that b-behind, and… not forget but… free ourselves from it.”

“W-what do you mean?” Connor asked softly, raising blue-rimmed eyes at Hank. The human squeezed him once more and untangled himself from the android gently.

“I told you that those walls are yours, okay? But I can tell that you’d rather never see that one thing again.” Hank said, pointing at the drawing of the machine that had killed Connor in the past. The android shivered and nodded quickly, turning away from the scribble.

Hank moved to the bundle with painting supplies Connor had prepared. He poured white paint onto the tray and extracted a new painting roller from his own stock left after the renovation.

“Look… I know that it’s sometimes hard to get over painful memories. I can tell you about it more than anyone…” Hank said somberly, dipping the roller in the paint and cleaning the excess on the tray. Connor watched his movements with that inquisitive look, trying to understand how they were related to forgetting traumas. “But… We can focus on better times. Leave the ugly ones behind and give them a middle finger.”

Hank painted over the machine, covering the tangled web of black lines with a layer of white. They were too dark to give up that easily and the general shape was still peeking through the paint. “See? It’s like with the memories. They are hard to get rid of and we keep remembering them, even though forgetting would be so much better for us. But whatever I do, the machine will still be there. It had been once put on the wall and I can’t undo that. Even if I completely cover it with the paint, it’s gonna be underneath forever…”

“I’m sorry…” Connor started in a self-depreciated voice. “I d-didn’t want to dest-“

“Kid, that’s not what I mean.” Hank assured gently, putting a hand on the android’s shoulder, stopping him before he got a chance to spiral into a dark pit of guilt. “I told you I wasn’t angry. And… I just wanted to say that, yeah, it’s there, but… we can make it distant. Invisible. We can make it irrelevant to our future.”

Hank painted over the wall again, this time nearly succeeding in completely covering the drawing. “It’s underneath, but we no longer care about it. When the paint dries, you can draw something over it again. You can draw a happy Purring Person the way you want to remember her, or Sumo snuggling in a warm bed, or whatever else that makes you cheer up. It’s a bit harder with our minds, but… doable, with enough time and support. Leaving all of that in the past and focusing on the nice moments, what do you say?” He asked softly, handing the painting roller to Connor.

The android sniffled, but smiled, the weight Hank hadn’t been aware of up to this point lifting off his shoulders visibly. “I… I like that.” He stood up, accepting the roller. “I want to do this. Thank you, Hank. I… I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

The human smiled. “Con, as long as I’m alive I’ll do _everything_ for you. And I’ll always be there for you, till the end of time. I love you the most in the world, son.” He embraced Connor, uncaring if he was going to get paint on their clothes. His son was the most important right now and always.

He smiled widely as Connor returned the embrace, whispering for the first time, “I love you too.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I gotta thank KittyLue for that amazing idea with Cole and Purring Person being friends now. Just how wholesome and sweet and heartbreaking at the same time is that.
> 
> Perkins' reasoning in the game didn't really made sense to me so I gave him a bit of an explanation. It's nothing particularily complicated, but it doesn't have to be, I've got a much bigger intrigue going on in a different spot and now, at least some reason is there and I'm not bothered by the lack of it!
> 
> Also, do you hate that "I will do something questionable and then lie or ommit an important truth in order not to hurt the other person and then the truth will resurface and the other person will lose trust in me because I did the thing and lied about it" cliche? I sure do. It's so overutilized that I don't want to use it here. Especially since Hank is supposed to have learned his lesson. Talk to each other, goddamit!  
> I mean. Hank still ommits some truth, but at least a part that won't be controversial if Connor finds out. Good.


	51. The Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor still had problems.  
> But this kind of problems he actually enjoyed. A lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Merry Christmas to each and everyone of you! I have a Christmas chapter that counts 13k words, I hope that you will be satisfied :)  
> There aren't any Trigger Warnings in this one, maybe one for Gavin who is still being an asshole, but trying to be better, and one for mentions of death, but in a, um... uplifting way? You will see. I did everything in my power to make it all fluffy, but you need to know, it's my style. Meaning that there are a few daggers waiting to bury in your heart here and there, but I promise that they are minor in comparison with the happiness! 💚❤️⚪  
> Happy holidays to you again and I hope that you enjoy! I love you all and thank you so much for reading 😊

Hank had been right. The walls were great.

Even though the android still wasn’t especially good at drawing or anything artistic at all, but it always helped him to spill the blackness of his thoughts onto the wall and then paint it over. Dr. Chapman had approved of this method as well, when Connor shared Hank’s idea with her on one of the sessions she had agreed to have with him. He might have still had the memories, but none of them could reach him when he was safe with Hank. The human was doing so much to protect him.

Connor knew that the environment wasn’t easy, he was smart enough to have noticed that Richard Perkins was too interested in him for it to be comfortable pretty early. The Lieutenant had only confirmed his suspicions a week ago. But the Agent was walking around the precinct in a very sour mood for the last few days and tossing Hank ugly glares each time he saw the Lieutenant, so Connor assumed that Hank’s plan to dish the transfer  was working for now.

Connor sighed and stepped away from the wall,  judging his progress critically. Sumo’s portrait unfortunately looked more like a Corgi than a Saint Bernard and his fur was a little bit too violet. It turned out that knowing the exact color codes in several different coding systems did little to aid him in an endeavor of mixing the actual paint.

The dog whined on the floor, seemingly offended at the depiction of himself. Connor pouted, turning to the animal.

“What? I didn’t say I was good at painting! Besides, hush, the artist is working now, it’s not finished yet...” He murmured , turning back to the wall. “I didn’t know you were an academic connoisseur of art…”

“Kid, I’m afraid that it doesn’t take much knowledge to see that there is something wrong with this dog…” The cheerful voice of Hank startled Connor, who whirled around, surprised at the sudden appearance of the human. “But you know, depends on how you approach it. I know an artist and he says that everything can be art, depending on its purpose. You could express with that fresco that Sumo is lazy and therefore is all belly and short legs…”

Connor nodded, a little irritated. “Yes, but I wasn’t aiming at symbolism here. Thank you for your precious advice, though , Hank.”

The human chuckled. “No need to get defensive, kid, you’re doing great. I like his smile.” Hank pointed out, patting Connor on the shoulder. “I just wanted to check how you liked that paint I got you.”

“It’s great, really.” Connor said sincerely. He loved the opportunity to use a color different than black or grey. And the tempo in which he had been burning through the black markers would soon have killed the Lieutenant’s wallet. “I love it. Still, I have yet to get a grip on mixing the right colors…”

“Ah, don’t worry about that. Carl says that it’s one of the hardest things in painting, getting the right hue.” He chuckled again, walking to the door. “Sumo actually looks good in lilac. I’m glad that you like them, then. Have fun, I gotta go shopping for a while, I’m back in twenty minutes.”

“Bye, Hank! Oh, and there is a traffic jam near the mall, you might want to leave the car on Nancy Avenue.”

“‘Kay, thanks , ”  c ame a muffled farewell followed by the sound of  the door closing. Connor waited for several more moments to hear the engine being ignited and only then turned to his friend with a frown.

“Sumo, I’m lost.” He complained, shaking his head in frustration. “I don’t know what to do.”

The animal tilted his head, wagging his fluffy tail hesitantly. Connor sighed.

“No, I’m not feeling that bad. It’s just…” He bit his lip, and added more red to the mixture. It turned pink and the android groaned, even more irritated. Nothing was going according to his plans.

But the dog was still looking at him insistently. Connor shrugged, resigning himself to painting with magenta-like color. “Hank said that he didn’t care about the holidays, but it was a long time ago, when he was still drinking… and now, he even vacuumed yesterday. And there is a new cloth on the table. A red one!”

The dog woofed, nuzzling on Connor’s hand, nearly getting the paint all over his significantly-differently-colored fur. The android chuckled and moved his painting supplies away to minimize the risk of turning the real Sumo violet or pink too.

“But it  _ is _ significant. Every clue is. And don’t look at me like that, I know it’s a bit late, but… Hank was surely very busy the last few weeks. I bet that now that he is happier, he is going to want to celebrate Christmas as well. And that involves gifts. Something I have neither an idea nor money for…”

It was true. Connor’s money was now frozen for the time he was spending with Hank outside work. Perkins had managed to win control over the android’s expenses and now required reports for every penny spent. It wasn’t a terrible hit for Hank or Connor, as they usually resorted to the Lieutenant’s card anyway… But the prototype couldn’t just ask Hank for the present he wanted to buy him as a surprise. And Agent Perkins surely wouldn’t want to fund it.

Sumo sat on Connor’s feet and raised his head, inviting the android to pet him under the jaw. Connor laughed, remembering that Hank always complained about being crushed by the heavy animal in situations like that. Thankfully, Connor’s limbs were no longer prone to that.

“And I know that you’d probably say that Hank would be fine with no gift at all, but you’re missing the point, Sumo.” The android muttered, scrubbing the dog enthusiastically. “I’ve been looking into the human traditions and it seems that this particular occasion is connected with something other than just receiving physical objects of value. A lot of humans claim that they care rather about the joy of giving something to their loved ones, or being shown that they are cared about…” Connor trailed off looking at the walls. “And I care about Hank. A lot...”

The paint on his palette  began to dry, so Connor decided to start painting again, so as not to waste it. He sighed, realizing something.

“I’ve already gotten so many things from him.” He said quietly, adding pink flowers around the purple dog, cringing internally at the horrible quality of his artistic choices. He had to look the plants up on the internet too, realizing that he had never seen flowers himself. “Hank bought me the charging mat, new clothes, this paint even… He let me draw on his own walls. And what can I get him to show him that I love him? I’ve  only bought him the powdered chocolate…”

Sumo decided to lay down, disappointed by the lack of pats. He sighed deeply, staring at a wall.

“No, it’s not enough…” Connor answered tiredly. “And I know for a fact that Hank doesn’t really care about chattel. Or anything physical, really. He seemed totally unmoved by the fact that I destroyed his walls. And  that I continue to do so …” The android gestured vaguely at the lopsided animals painted on them. Sure , they were much nicer to look at than the machine that had disemboweled Connor-35, but still far away from any kind of a pleasant view.

The dog blinked slowly, turning his eyes at the android, who kneeled beside him.

“Oh, if only that was true. I mean… That’s nice of you to say so, but… I’m not nearly good enough at painting to even consider that. Don’t look at me like that, thank you for being supportive, but I have eyes of my own…” Connor chuckled, standing up again and casting a critical look at his art. Sumo definitely needed longer legs. But the android only had pink on his palette.

“I mean…” he started again, adding yellow to the magenta this time. And white. Lots of white. “You don’t even look like you here. And humans have much more advanced abilities to recognize resemblance in facial features in their own species. I’m sure that Hank would find it sweet that I attempted his portrait, but… Let’s be honest, that wouldn’t be a very good portrait.” Connor huffed a laugh, seeing that the yellow was a step in the right direction. Rosy beige was much closer to brown than magenta. “And I really want to give him something significant. If Christmas is all about showing that you love someone, my painting skills are not nearly enough…”

Sumo snored in his sleep and Connor took it as a doubtful agreement.

“It’s only two days until Christmas Eve…” The android muttered finally extending the dog’s legs. “And I still have yet to think about the right thing to get for our owner. And how to acquire it…”

* * *

It turned out that Connor wasn’t mistaken. The android didn’t miss an opportunity to throw an ‘I told you so’ look Sumo’s way, but the dog was unmoved by his loss in the unspoken bet. Instead, he was just as happy as  usual to greet the human who came back with a giant Christmas tree on his back. Connor followed him to the living room, taking all the other supplies from Hank to mitigate his burden.

“Huh… That shit’s heavy…” Hank huffed with effort as he placed the tree in a stand. “And they promised that a fake one would be lighter…”

“It’s beautiful…” Connor said, feeling the pine needles with his hand. They were crafted with incredible detail, soft when needed and prickly where the real ones would be. If not for Connor’s advanced scanners, the android couldn’t tell that the tree was indeed artificial.

“Yeah, so I thought…” Hank stopped beside Connor and started to examine the details of the decoration as well. “It was cheaper than the real thing, and supposedly should last for years, so that’s a plus… Also, you know that I don’t really care if it’s plastic or not anymore. And I figured that you wouldn’t be happy if I got a real tree, since… they die in the process. And I saw what you did with Person’s coffee after she had gotten that ugly-ass painted succulent…”

Connor jerked, panicked at the comment. “I… I h-have no idea what you are talking about.”

The human laughed merrily at that. “Kid, you’re not fooling anyone. I saw you wandering through the bullpen with that spoonful of salt . Chris even asked what you were doing, but your you seemed too focused on not dropping a single grain to even hear him. And you  definitely looked too smug once she tasted it and spat into her bin. You’re forgetting that you are plotting your intrigues in a precinct full of detectives who know you pretty well at this point.”

Connor cleared his throat, feeling thirium warm up his face. “I… It was a climate-prevention action. Killing plants is an incredibly detrimental practice…”

“Sure.” Hank chuckled, putting his hand on Connor’s shoulder. “One plant is going to make such a difference… Con, tell me the truth, I promise I’m not gonna spill it. We had a lot of fun watching your prank with Chris.”

The android sighed deeply, defeated. “Succulents are to be admired.” He said with conviction. “And painting them like that must surely be so painful and suffocating to them! These spray-paints are often toxic until they dry, not to mention the fact that they completely cover the plants’ surface , rendering them unable to photosynthesize and breathe through their stomas. And buying them is only creating demand for such monstrosities… I informed Officer Person about that in an anonym I left on her terminal too. I trust that she reflects on her actions.”

Hank chuckled again, visibly amused by Connor’s monologue. “I’m sure she will. No one wants their coffee salty. And I bet that she didn’t even think about the significance of financing the succulent-painting business. Now you opened her eyes…”

Connor huffed. “I hope that not only hers. I intend to do that with everyone who abuses a plant.”

“Okay, Con, I’m all for it. But please, try to be more sneaky next time, okay? Ben saw you as well, but he had a good laugh at observing Person so pissed, so I convinced him not to tell anyone a word. He’s my friend and won’t  cause you any problems, but think about what would  have happened if for example Reed was the one who had seen you…”

Connor’s eyes darkened at that. Despite the fact that Detective Reed was lately behaving… differently than earlier, he still couldn’t shake off a terrible feeling each time the man was around. Connor was always quick to leave every room the Detective  entered , change his route each time he spotted the human in a corridor, stay away from any place he knew the man was residing in. After a few times Connor had made a quick retreat, ignoring the Detective’s attempts at speaking to him and opting for finding Hank as soon as possible, Gavin Reed had stopped trying to communicate with the android. Luckily, Hank’s glare from afar was enough to fend him off and Connor, not being able to directly tell any human not to bother him, was content to have the protection of his owner.

“Yes, you’re right.” He said quietly, shivering at the thought of the Detective. Him just trying to speak to Connor was much better than him beating the android to the bare equivalent of bone underneath his skin,  but the prototype didn't trust the man, nor was he comfortable around him without knowing what his intentions were. “I should have been more careful. I was too preoccupied with preconstructing how to get that paint off of that echeveria and forgot to pay more attention to my surroundings. That won’t happen again.”

“Good to know.” Hank smiled gently and walked towards the garage. “Come on, now, I need your fancy scanners, ‘cause I have no fucking idea where I put the decorations. We gotta festoon that thing.”

It turned out that Hank had a lot of decorations to hang on the tree. At least three giant cardboard boxes were buried in the garage and Hank said that it was still not everything, but that they already had plenty to work with, so Connor stopped searching. Hank let him pick a color they’d decorate the tree in, since he had several different bundles of ornaments. Connor had difficulties deciding, but he was sure of one thing.

“I don’t want it to be blue.” He said quietly, looking at a glass orb in his hand. It’s color reminded him of cornflowers and Portugal, but above all else about something entirely different.

“Okay, it’s doesn’t have to be, then.” Hank said softly, immediately knowing that there was something painful about this particular shade. He walked to the android and surrounded his shoulders with an arm protectively. “Do you want to… talk about this?” He asked hesitantly.

“I… I’m not…” Connor sighed, not feeling prepared to delve deeper into that subject right now. “L-let’s just say that… I have never seen a real cornflower in my life. B-but I’ve seen different things in this color.”

“I get it, kid.” Hank smiled gently and took the bauble out of his hand. “Would you like to see a cornflower one day?” He continues when Connor nodded minutely. “My family used to have a plot of land in a small village a few hours downstate. A lot of different flowers grew there when I was a kid, I could take you there… sometime…” He trailed off, a smile slowly vanishing from his face, as he realized something important. Connor knew it too.

“Hank, it’s okay.” The android said quietly. “The investigation isn’t nearly as close to the end as CyberLife would want it to be. It’s been two months and we know the model numbers of the leaders and the name of Jericho, but not its location. I could as well stay with the DPD till summer. It is a possibility…”  _ More likely a statistic one, of an unlikely event to take place, but… it’s there… _

But the Lieutenant’s smile looked more somber than Connor would have liked. “Yeah, Sure… Okay, so… if I get a chance, I promise you that I’ll take you there. Deal?”

“Deal. Thank you, Hank.” Connor smiled sincerely. It was more than he could ask for anyway.

Ultimately, they settled on red and gold. Connor liked that color scheme. Actually, he liked every color, and even cobalt blue was nice if it was paired with something else than white. He thought that one day he could paint some blue flowers on a wall and make the other memories distant. Overwrite them with better, more important ones.

There were different kinds of ornaments beside colorful baubles to be  hung too. Apart from plastic ones, intended to be  hung lower, where Sumo was prone to accidentally  knocking them off the tree, Connor found lots of ornaments woven from straw, several made out of cones dipped in paint and  glitter, and a few wooden ones. Especially one in particular gripped his attention.

“Oh…” He whispered softly, picking up a wooden silhouette of a Saint Bernard. On the other side of the ornament, there was a name, scribbled  in handwriting that was careful, but with visible difficulty. ‘Sumo’.

Hank made a soft noise, seeing what Connor was holding and approached slowly, putting down everything he had in his hands. The android had immediately figured out why it seemed to have such an influence on the man, but it was already too late. Hank had seen it.

“It was Cole’s favorite ornament, you know…” The human said in a voice thick with emotions. “We picked it together for… the last Christmas we’ve had together. He was five and… couldn’t write yet, but he wanted to give it a name, to make sure that Sumo knew it was him…” A tear escaped his eye, but he was smiling fondly at the wooden dog. “We  had yet to take him home, he was still not born at the breeding farm… But Cole insisted that he wanted a dog as soon as possible. He wanted Sumo to feel at home even though he wasn’t with us yet. I helped him sign this ornament…”

“H-Hank, I’m sorry…” Connor attempted to gently put the figurine back into the box, but Hank shook his head, still smiling despite the tears in his eyes.

“Kid, it’s fine, really. I can’t help crying, ‘cause I miss him, but… This ornament is a good memory. One I want to remember. Let’s hang it, I wanna keep looking at it.” He said adamantly, and wiped his cheeks. Connor smiled hesitantly and hung the little silhouette in an honorable place.

“You know, I think that Cole would love you, Con.” Hank said in a wobbly voice once the android stepped back to look at the tree along the Lieutenant. “I’m sure of it.”

“I… R-really?” Connor didn’t know what to say. Obviously, Hank didn’t treat his dead son lightly. And Connor didn’t either.  Hearing something like that was like a totally new shade of  _ golden _ . It was a whole new level of trust Hank was putting onto the android.

“Of course.” The human chuckled and gathered him into a warm embrace. “You are an amazing guy and Cole always wanted…” Hank stopped himself for a moment, seemingly reevaluating his words. “…I just think that you would have a lot of common interests… and… I just  wish you could meet him…” He said softly, with a peaceful smile on his face.

Connor was surprised to find his own eyes watering. He pressed himself tighter to Hank and a sob turning midway into a chuckle escaped him. The android had no idea that crying could be pleasant. But it felt nice, like a warm summer rain. Suddenly, Connor wished even more that the unlikely opportunity of spending summer with Hank would take place after all. Summer and every other season after it.

* * *

The bullpen was buzzing with life, everyone rushing to collect their stuff and leave to meet their families and feast with their relatives for Christmas. Connor narrowly avoided bumping into Officer Wilson and stepped out of Detective Chen’s way, all trying to spot a particular person in the crowd at the same time. His model might have been designed to give him an edge in situations like that, but it didn’t mean that it was easy… All the officers were in a hurry and even though several of them had already left, it did very little to reduce the commotion.

There was, however, one person that  seemingly wasn’t rushing anywhere. Connor spotted Gavin Reed strolling slowly through the hall, trying as hard  as the android not to bump into anyone else . The man had his head down, and his palms  rested firmly in the pockets of his jacket. He looked just as pale and sleep-deprived as usual lately, and there was a certain kind of tiredness and sorrow on his face, even despite the merry atmosphere all around.

Connor felt his throat clench at the sight of the man and turned away, abandoning his plans in lieu of retreating. But there was Officer Chen carrying a large pile of boxes on his way and the android had to wait for her to pass a narrow opening between the desks before he could escape. The Detective had already seen him.

“Connor.” The android’s brain  filtered his voice in a weird way. His audio processors picked up every little sound of the precinct, but one Gavin Reed’s voice made his throat clench and his thirium pump race. “Come on, I just want to talk to you…”

The prototype turned around and quickly marched beside the desks, swiftly avoiding several humans startled by his pace. He cut a corner and passed by the Captain’s office, but the Detective had been trained in following targets through the crowd as well. And it wasn’t even that big of a crowd.

Eventually, Connor had been forced to enter the narrow corridor leading towards the Archives. The situation  was far less than ideal. There was no other escape from this place than through the doors Connor had just passed, and the android had been forbidden from entering the evidence room without a human supervisor. There were cameras here, but none of them  captured audio. The Detective was safe to say anything he wanted to Connor and the android doubted that the man wanted to hurt him right now, but… the prototype wasn’t sure if he would be able to stop himself from doing something stupid. It was one of the worst places he could be in right now. But Connor’s thoughts were racing and he felt like a cornered animal.  The Detective had cut off every other way to escape.

It wasn’t even a way to escape. Connor stopped by the back wall of the corridor, afraid to turn around. He was shaking, clinging desperately onto the very few preconstructions of Gavin Reed’s actions in which he  either decided not to come through the door or had lost Connor among the officers.

Of course they weren’t right.

The door opened slowly, well-oiled hinges and lock giving off a quiet click that almost made Connor’s knees buckle. In the silence of the corridor it was almost as loud as shattering that mirror. Connor flinched at the memory and his hand shot up almost on instinct, immediately covering his bright red LED that had cost him half a face, an eye and a hand last time.

“Connor…” The man’s voice was hoarse, but he was speaking slowly and quietly. Almost as if it took a great effort to even draw a sound from him. “I’m…. pffheck…” He cleared his throat and was silent for several seconds. But when his spoke up, a weak shadow of his past asshollery was back in his voice. Self-assurance and meanness as a way to cover the fact that he was lost and uncomfortable in the situation. “At least just phecking turn around when I’m talking to you.”

Connor didn’t follow that order, instead tensing impossibly tight, his shaking now apparent to the human eye as well. It must have had an effect on the Detective, who shifted in his spot, but thankfully didn’t come any closer. Connor could see a vague reflection on his silhouette on the smooth white tiles on the wall in front of him.

“Uh…” The human said, sighing. He was even more quiet than before. “I’m… I guess it’s the shittiest way possible to start an apology… B-but… I’m an idiot… You know that at this point probably…” He chuckled mirthlessly and Connor could hear something painful in his voice. Like a desperation, dire need for the android to start laughing as well. To relieve the horrible pressure crushing both of them. To show that he hadn’t been as affected.

Connor remained silent. He had been affected, very,  _ very _ much.

The human sighed again. He was growing even less adamant than before. “I’m just… not used to shit like that. I’m… The last time I apologized was when my mother was still alive… s-so quite a while back… But I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry. I did what I did,  ‘ cause-”

“Go. Away.” Connor managed through  his clenched throat, the words almost tearing painfully out of his trachea. He felt like it was being crushed all over again.

A grave silence enveloped them after that. Detective Reed seemed too surprised by Connor interrupting him to continue his strand, instead frowning and shifting on his feet again. “I… What?”

“I don’t want to hear your voice. I don’t want to see your face. I don’t want you to come any closer. Get. Away. From me.” The android forced out, his voice low and dangerous. He hardly ever felt things like that, this raging white-hot flame of hatred. Alongside fear, this was one of his least favorite feelings. The Detective was making him feel both.

The human took a step back, but didn’t turn around. He sounded hesitant and almost pleading when he spoke up again. “Oh, Jesus, come on… I know I fucked up, okay? B-but… I’m trying. I got carried away… like in… bar fights I’m getting myself into ‘cause I can’t handle myself... But you didn’t defend yourself. If you j-just… I don’t know, slapped me when I was getting mad, I could-“

“So it’s my fault, isn’t it?! I was too annoying, and I just  _ allowed _ you to nearly kill me!” Connor whirled around, each word leaving the human’s lips only adding to the raging hatred in his core. It briefly occurred to him that he had just uncovered why Captain Fowler stressed in Gavin Reed’s public files that the man should never have acted as a negotiator. The Detective was absolutely horrendous when it came to placating a situation.

The human looked shocked at the sheer amount of hatred on Connor’s face. He took another step back and placed his hand on the door handle, ready to flee, but ultimately not leaving his place. Though, when he spoke again, his voice was even more hesitant.

“N-no, that’s not what I meant… Look, I told you I was shitty at apologizing… I’m sorry, I really am-“

“I don’t care!” Connor spat, gritting his teeth. “I would like to inform you, Detective Reed, that I am not allowed to defend myself from the humans whom I am supposed to work with. Or attack them. But neither am I supposed to hide evidence I am asked to disclose. How is a simple bunch of algorithms like me supposed to differentiate between one disobedience and another?”

The Detective went pale at that and opened his mouth to say something, but looked frozen for a few seconds. Neither of them moved until a blurry silhouette of someone appeared on the other side of the doors and eventually opened them, tearing the handle away from the Detective’s limp hand.

“Is someone there? I thought I heard shouting…” Chris Miller appeared in the opening and his face quickly fell into a frown at seeing the android’s expression.

“Uh, Connor, is everything  alright? Gavin, what are you doing here?” He pushed past the other man and blinked, trying to understand what was happening. “Do you need something from Connor?”

“ _ No, he doesn’t _ .” The android hissed, narrowing his eyes and leaning forward like a feral animal ready to launch itself at the Detective. Connor was technically supposed to behave like a regular, emotionless android to avoid any suspicions, but all reason  left him around Detective Reed. It was a miracle that he had managed to stay in place instead of gripping the man’s neck and tearing his spinal cord out through his mouth like billions of preconstructions raging in his processor were telling him to.

Thankfully, the short human got the message and turned around, muttering something inaudible and quickly leaving the room. Connor didn’t relax though, which made Chris visibly worried.

“Uh…” He tried hesitantly, reaching for the android’s shoulder slowly, but only letting his hand hover over the prototype’s shoulder. “Connor, are you okay? Should I call Hank?”

The android took a deep breath and forced himself to untangle from the tense position. “N-no. Sorry, I just… glitched. Detective Reed was… making me feel uncomfortable.”

“Uh, I get it.” Chris sighed quietly and smiled, though some tension was still visible on his face. “He makes everyone around here glitch like that from time to time. But you’re fine, you’re not gonna do anything stupid, right?”

“No, of course not. I’m not a deviant.” Connor shook his head and fixed his tie, regaining his composure. Now that the Detective was gone, Connor was more worried  that Chris could stop being so friendly and tell the Captain or Agent Perkins about his aggressive behavior. Connor shot a quick glance at the man to see whether he seemed in any way bothered by the android’s previous display of fear and hatred. Indeed, he looked apprehensive, but not hostile as Connor had worried.

“Okay…” He sighed and opened the door, gesturing for Connor to come first. “So, maybe you could help me instead of lingering behind alone like that? I need a few things from my locker and I could use a hand carrying boxes…”

“Sure thing.” Connor nodded politely, following Chris like  the good machine he was supposed to be. Now that he had calmed, the prototype was embarrassed about his previous behavior. And about the fact that he still couldn’t help imagining a pike going through Detective Reed’s head each time he thought about him.

It was obvious that Chris just wanted to keep an eye  on Connor until he was sure that the android posed no threat to the surrounding. The prototype didn’t mind, though. He himself knew that he was safe  for everyone but Gavin Reed and in every other situation than being cornered and forced to face the human. Besides, Chris’ company was always nice. And Connor  also had a question to ask.

“I was actually looking for you earlier, Chris.” Connor said, helping the human extract several books from his locker. “I need  some advice.”

“Uh, alright.” The human smiled tentatively, raising an eyebrow. “Do you need another bucket of paint in secrecy from Hank?”

Connor twisted his hands sheepishly. “N-no, actually… I didn’t manage to be as stealthy as I planned. The Lieutenant found out…”

“Of course he did.” Chris chuckled. “I knew he would and I knew that he wouldn’t have given you any shit about it.”

“But after that, it went better than I had anticipated.” Connor admitted, stuffing several things into a box neatly. “I’m not used to not being hit for mistakes like that. It was a pleasant surprise.” The human gawked at him at that, but Connor didn’t give it much thought. Chris didn’t have to be an expert on android development and was surely oblivious to a lot of ways of programming them. “My question concerns another thing. It occurred to me that Hank wanted to celebrate Christmas this year. And I would like  to as well.”

“Uhh… Y-yeah, okay…” Chris’ voice was a bit wavy at the beginning, but soon he had gotten over whatever was making him so touched. “Okay. So what kind of advice do you need?”

Connor bit his lip, stopping in his tracks slowly. No one knew apart from himself and Hank, and maybe Sumo, how much Connor really cared about his owner. And while Connor was supposed to be protective of him, such attachment should not have occurred in  a machine that , according to their handler and developers , didn’t even possess emotions. Chris had probably already noticed that there was something more about Connor’s and Hank’s relationship both ways, but Connor had confirmed it out loud just once, when he was making that  c offee. And It wasn’t even as straightforward as it was going to be right now.

“I know that I’m just a machine… and that I can’t really participate in human traditions. A-and I don’t want to offend you or anyone by, um… usurping a right to pretend that I could…” He started hesitantly, not looking up at the man. “B-but… I was doing my research and it seems that… Christmas is about showing that you care about others a lot… And I care about Hank. I wanted him to know that…”

“Connor, no one is mad at you for wanting to participate in Christmas.” Chris said softly. “At this point, it’s a very inclusive holiday, you don’t even have to be a Christian to celebrate. As you said, it’s about being with the ones you love and that’s  a universal value.” Connor risked a glance up and the genuine smile on the man’s face reassured him a bit. Chris didn’t seem angry or suspicious at Connor loving his owner.

“B-but… I shouldn’t use CyberLife’s funds to do anything but advance the mission, especially now that Agent Perkins is supervising me financially… And I have no idea what to get Hank…” Connor said quietly. “I mean… I’m not asking you for more money, I just… I’d like to… I don’t know….” The android sighed, seeing no escape from this situation.

But, to his surprise, the human let out a light-hearted laugh at that. “Look, I don’t think that you realize, but you are the sole reason why Hank is walking around with a smile on his face lately. So I’d say that you’ve already given him more that anyone could ever ask for.”

“B-but…” Connor felt warmth in his core at that, but it did little to give him any idea for the present. “It’s obligatory to gift people you care about… I don’t have anything for Hank…”

“No, it’s not obligatory. It’s about your attitude, how you treat others. You’ve given Hank the best already, and you are continuing to give it to him. Happy memories are the best thing to share with anyone. Presents are only a means to an end during occasions like that, but really, it’s not about the objects. It’s about what the person being gifted and the one who is gifting feel in that moment.”

“Oh…” Connor’s LED whirled yellow at that. Chris had gotten him an idea. It wasn’t perfect, but… The prototype could work around the problems that  arose . He grinned widely at the human, feeling incredibly relieved and happy with what he had said. “Thank you, Chris. I knew you would be able to help me. You are a great friend.”

The human smiled at that brightly, actually blushing a little. “Oh my God, Connor… I didn’t think I would ever hear something like that from you. I’m happy that you feel that way, you are a great friend to me too.”

Connor felt golden again, though in a  slightly different way than with Hank. Still, it was a greatly pleasurable feeling and it only served to make Chris grow even more in Connor’s eyes. He purred quietly, but apparently loud enough for the human to hear him, because he chuckled, amused.

“Well, that’s new. I didn’t know that happy androids purr like cats. But come to think about it, I only know one who does.”

* * *

The dark falling early in winter usually meant that Connor had less time to enjoy sunlight when it actually occurred, but in the weeks nearing the Christmas Eve, the android found out that there were advantages to this  situation as well. Standing on the porch and watching  the colorful lights of Christmas decorations on Hank’s neighbors’ houses paint the snow in myriads of shades was worth even the uncomfortable cold biting into  the sensors on Connor’s face.

The android observed the commotion of his owner’s neighbors departing to go to churches. Some of their eyes lingered on him, the humans probably surprised to see an android of an uncommon model dressed in warm winter clothes, leaning on a wall and watching Christmas decorations. But Connor liked this atmosphere too much to be bothered by a few unfavorable stares. He was very much aware how his last Christmas time had been, while he was still trapped in the labs. His mind had been shifting back then just as much as it was now, accepting new concepts and reshaping itself to understand what was happening to him and why. Though it had been an entirely different direction than now.

Hank appeared at Connor’s side, clutching car keys in his hand. He stood for a while on the porch as if making up his mind about something and bracing himself. He then finally started walking towards his car, opening it and lingering there before getting in. As if he had been waiting for Connor to join.

The android tilted his head, casting him a questioning look. The Lieutenant seemed weirdly undecided. Especially since Connor had no intention of coming along on his trip.

Hank finally sighed. “C’mon, Con… I… I got a place to be in and I was wondering if you would like to… Eh…” He trailed off, visibly not knowing what to say and how.

Connor raised his eyebrows. “Are you going to the church? Churches do not allow androids inside. I don’t have a soul, Hank.”

“That’s bullshit.” The human said adamantly. “Of course you do. But no, I’m not going… there. I… I don’t know how I feel about it...” He sighed heavily. “I need to pay a visit to Cole.  It’s been long enough.”

“Oh.” Connor said softly, dropping his gaze to the ground. “I… don’t know if…” He was at a loss as to what to say. It was a very personal matter for Hank. Connor had no intention of invading it.

“Look, I’ll understand if you don’t want to. I just… I thought that maybe you could come too. Because I… Because that maybe it’s strange to you, but I know that I haven’t been doing great the last couple of years, but you were the one who managed to change that. And I know that… if Cole really is watching, he would like to thank you for saving me.” Hank said quietly, not looking at the android.

Connor remained silent for a few long moments, battling with his thoughts. Hank’s religious beliefs were far beyond him, the android considered himself unable to believe in anything at all, due to the fact that he was just a piece of machinery and a bunch of code written by humans. The Lieutenant being so sure that Connor possessed a soul, though… it was nice. I made him feel a bit lighter, as if he actually mattered. And there was a certain comfort in the thought that loved ones weren’t ever truly gone. Connor thought that he understood why some humans felt the need to believe in something. Having emotions at all sure made it difficult to deal with the pain that came with them…

Connor quietly left the porch and joined Hank in the car.

The atmosphere around them during the ride was… odd. Connor knew Hank so well at this point that he could tell his emotions apart even without him vocalizing them. And he had expected the human to be sad or distressed. But Hank was… calm. There was a certain veil of comfort over them as they stopped in front of the graveyard. Hank didn’t look by any means happy, but… there was something bright about his demeanor nonetheless. As if he had been struggling with a terrible burden but lost part of it. As if he had been looking at the world through a charred glass plane that was cleaned  of soot at last.

Cole’s grave was located under a large tree whose leafless branches formed  a kind of baldachin over several other child tombstones. Connor felt somehow hollow, scanning the inscriptions on the pale marble. ‘Cole Anderson, born on September  23 , 2029. Died on October  11, 2035\. Aged six.’

Hank knelt in front of the tombstone, uncaring of the snow biting into the fabric of his trousers. He took out a small vigil light he had with him, the red glass catching some warm reflections from candles lit near the other graves.

“Hey, kid. S-sorry it was… so long.” Connor couldn’t see Hank’s face from where he was standing several feet behind, leaving the human some space. But he could tell by the waver in his voice that Hank’s throat was clenched and that he was being  racked with emotions. Still, the tone of his voice was light. “I haven’t been doing that great…  And… ‘m sorry for this too. I know you would want me to be happy. But… I’ll try to be better at this stuff. I promise, son.”

Connor blinked rapidly, clearing his own eyes from the stinging of first tears. Cole was in no way related to the android, and the prototype had no intention of usurping himself the right to such a deep connection with him as Hank had. Additionally, Connor had no proof of whether the child was even still around here or somewhere else in any way. It shouldn’t have been possible for him to even comprehend this concept.

And yet he did.

He couldn’t feel, hear or see anything out of the ordinary, but… Somehow, Connor knew that through Hank’s love for him, it wasn’t ever possible for Cole to truly fall into inexistence. The prototype promised himself that he  would do his best to make Hank happy, now for his dead son’s sake too. He had never met and would never meet Cole, but Connor wanted to remember him as well and honor his memory.

Hank lit the vigil light and stood up, staying over the grave for another half an hour, silently contemplating something. Tears were rolling down his face, but there was a gentle, genuine smile on his lips as well. At some point, Connor approached him quietly and touched his hand with his own, probing if the human would welcome the contact right now. Hank took a hold of Connor’s hand and intertwined their fingers together. Neither of them paid attention to the gentle cyan glow that lit up in places of Connor’s exposed chassis had contact with the human’s skin. It felt so natural to bare a hand for Hank in this moment, that Connor did it instinctively and didn’t even notice.

Hank sighed heavily and squeezed the android’s hand, finally making a decision to return home. “C’mon. Sumo’s waiting. I’ll be back here sooner than the last time.” He said quietly, tossing a final farewell look to the small tombstone.

Connor lingered behind, not following his owner immediately. Hank was strolling slowly and didn’t stop, knowing that the android could catch up to him effortlessly, so the prototype figured out that he had some time for a quick message of his own.

He knelt in front of the grave as well, and opened his mouth, not sure how to start. It was certainly unusual for an android to do things like talking to the deceased… But Connor wasn’t a usual android.

“I wish I could have met you, Cole.” He settled on saying quietly. “I’m sorry I can’t. But I promise to take good care of Hank and Sumo. And… and you take care of Purring Person, please. There is no heaven for me, but… I hope that you are both happy in yours.”

* * *

Spending Christmas in such a small bevy was nothing like the celebrations Hank was used to. Back when Cole had still been alive, he would have either hosted his whole family here, along with his brother, his wife’s parents and sister, or travel to their home downstate. Cole would have played with his cousin and their little dogs, the home, regardless of which it had been, would have been loud with laughter and chatter of many voices.

Some could also say that spending the holidays with just one android and a dog was pathetic. But Hank felt entirely otherwise. Connor was nothing like the cold, emotionless machines everyone saw androids as, and Hank was happier than he had been in years. For the first time  since he had lost his own family, he had a semblance of comfort in the prototype’s company. For the first time since Cole’s death, Hank didn’t feel lonely.

“Uh… Thank God for convenience food. If I had to make a  whole fucking turkey, I don’t think I’d finish it before January first…” Hank grumbled, unpacking the smaller portion meant for one or two people that required only backing. “And no, Connor. You’re not cooking all the food alone.”

The android chuckled from the table, having been assigned to the task of setting it . “Well, technically you bought your part at  the supermarket, it’s not really that reminiscent of  the true art of cooking.”

“Smartass.” Hank smiled amusedly at the tease. “When did you switch  software with an AX400?”

Connor huffed  with laughter and moved back into the kitchen to help the Lieutenant with preparing eggnog. They couldn’t find an alcohol-free version in the mall for some reason and Hank was determined to keep away from anything that threatened to throw him back into the clutches of his past addiction. So it was one of the few things they needed to make from scratch.

Hank had never been a particularly good cook and Connor, despite his dedication and being so systematic, wasn’t that culinarily gifted either, but they managed to make one of the better eggnogs Hank had ever tasted. He hummed with appreciation at the sweet-buttery taste with a note of vanilla and nutmeg. Connor tilted his head in confusion as he saw Hank take yet another thing out of the cupboard. A small shot-glass.

“Hank…” He said softly, worry nestling into his voice. “I… I thought you weren’t going to drink again…”

The human smiled. “I’m not gonna. It’s for you.”

“I… What?” Connor threw his head to the other side and Hank couldn’t hold a chuckle. He really did look like a puppy.

“Well, I’ve been thinking…” He said softly. “I… I have a thing or two for you, but really… there is something else I think you might like. So… it’s not a traditional gift and also, it’s a bit early, but… who cares, really? I remember our talk about thirium and shampoo and… the ketchup. And I’ve read your instruction, so I know that you can eat small quantities of almost anything. And I just wanted to give you some more tastes to compare thirium to them.”

“I… Oh….” Connor was visibly taken aback, but he couldn’t help a smile creeping on his face. “Well… I can’t deny that I’d like to experience more than I had. Especially if they are as good as ketchup and fries…”

Hank laughed quietly. “Oh, my sweet summer child. You shall see.”

The human had acquired a lot of different things, but everything had to be prepared in very small portions. Connor could  only consume 20 ounces of stuff at a time  at best, and Hank wanted to let him taste as many things as he could. He cut a strawberry in half, separated one cube from a chocolate bar, cut  off a tiny little slice of a banana. He filled the shot-glass with eggnog and took out several more fruits and simple sweets he had bought. As a cherry on top of it all, he made Connor a miniature version of  a s’more over an electric grill. Hank would love to make it over a real campfire one day, but for now, Connor’s time with him was limited…

Despite Kerring’s desperate efforts and Hank’s machinations, they had been unable to extend Connor’s stay with the DPD. The android was unaware of that fact, but his days in Hank’s house were counted. Perkins also decided to take it upon himself to utterly destroy Hank as well and he worked hard to move the entire investigation under the FBI’s control. With the advent of January 15th, Connor would be  truly be gone from under Hank’s wings…

The human sighed deeply, not wanting to dwell on it any longer. He loved Connor and wouldn’t back out from anything to keep him, but for now, nothing could be done. While Hank was frantically looking for an opportunity to further delay or terminate Perkins’ plans, none  were to be seen on the horizon. So he just wanted to cherish every moment he had left with the prototype. In case it was their last.

While Hank planned to go for fruits and sweets this time, he also meant to include several traditional dishes connected with Christmas. But when his eyes landed on the turkey, something dawned  on him. The human hummed, deep in thought.

“Con?” Hank asked gesturing at the meat. “Do you want some meat as well?”

Just as he had expected, Connor bit his lip, visibly trying to word his sentence in a way that wouldn’t offend Hank. The Lieutenant could never be angry at the android for such a trivial thing and he hoped that Connor knew it, but it was a habit of his and a very strongly rooted one, so Hank didn’t comment on it.

“I…” The android said sheepishly. “I’m very grateful for this opportunity, but… While I have nothing against eating meat by you and all animals of any other species, it’s… I mean, it’s a part of human nature to eat meat, and while some refuse to for various reasons, I understand that it’s natural to you, but… I don’t require any nutrients acquired from digesting meat and I think that it’s not worth killing an animal just so I could find out how it tastes. I mean… Even if the turkey is already dead and not killed just for me… it just doesn’t seem right…”

“Con, it’s fine.” Hank smiled reassuringly. “I figured you could have such reflections, that’s why I asked. I respect that.”

Connor smiled as well, visibly grateful for Hank’s understanding. They both moved to the table, settling the food down. The quantities were so tiny that all the samples fit into a single plate and it wasn’t even full. Hank’s attention was caught by an unusual detail on the table though.

“Connor? Why are there three sets of dishes?” Hank asked, eyeing the one extra plate suspiciously. It was hard to believe that the android made a mistake, especially since the number of people meant to dine was so low.

Connor cleared his throat. “Well…” He said softly. “I… was trying to prepare myself to spending Christmas with you, and… I did a research on various traditions from across the world. And… there was one Slavic custom that caught my attention. I liked that it involves leaving one extra plate for…” Connor stopped for a while, averting Hank’s gaze. It was evident that he had no idea how the human would react and he had taken a risk. “They say that it’s for a ‘wayworn traveller’, but it originated from a pre-Christian tradition of celebrating kind household demons and deceased members of the family, who are believed to linger with their loved ones and protect them. A way to show them that they are remembered… I just thought… that it was a kind gesture.”

Hank could help tears welling in his eyes once again. “Oh, my God, Con… I’m… Yeah. You are right…. Thank you...” He gathered the android into a tight embrace, wishing to show him just how much he was moved by that gesture. “You’re such a good person, Connor.”

Connor returned the embrace and when he spoke, his voice was a little distorted by the quiet rumble of affection that came with it. “I wouldn’t be who I am if it wasn’t for you, Hank. You… You helped me more than anyone ever had.”

Hank chuckled tenderly, his heart made undone by Connor once again. He couldn’t believe how far they had travelled since that first meeting in Jimmy’s bar. Since an android who had considered himself glitchy and faulty because of the scars left on his soul, afraid to be what he was, and a rough human blinded with hatred and racism.

Hank didn’t even question if Amanda was included in Connor’s evaluation as well. It didn’t matter to him at this point, the android was clearly in a good place and if it didn’t involve the manipulative AI, Hank couldn’t be more happy about it. And if she was… knowing that Connor was coming about to realizing that Hank’s presence in his life was better for him than Amanda’s gave the human hope that the prototype was finally getting free.

* * *

It turned out that Connor was far more into sweets than fruits, though not for the reasons one might have expected. The android seemed to have much more senses than humans when it came to experiencing food… or anything he had decided to lick.

Hank watched with  amusement as Connor tried various samples placed before him, each new object making his LED spin yellow for a second. He was responding positively to almost anything, which wasn’t probably so surprising, given that he would usually eat far less pleasant  things than strawberries and chocolate. The only thing that had mad Connor’s face twist  in disgust was, to Hank’s surprise, sugar cube the human had placed on the plate as a semblance of a control test.

“What is wrong with that one?” Hank couldn’t help laughing at Connor’s face seizing up and his nose being wrinkled. “It’s literally the same taste as half the things you had already tried and loved.”

“Uhh…” Connor reached for another half of a strawberry he had bitten earlier. The android was careful to take in very small portions so as to not use all the space in his tiny analogue to a stomach immediately. “It’s not the taste. I can’t stand… the simplicity of it.”

Hank furrowed his brows, still smiling but finding Connor’s explanation hard to comprehend. “Con, you look like when you tasted that shampoo. How the fuck is sugar worse than that? And what are you even talking about?”

“It’s not the taste! I liked the shampoo less taste-wise, but… this… It’s just sucrose!” Connor exclaimed dramatically “Twelve atoms of coal, twenty two of hydrogen and eleven of oxygen, two of them making up a simple oxygen bridge, not even a single aromatic compound! There is a slight pollution of other substances gathered through air-exposure and your way of storing the sugar, but I can’t….” Connor shook his head and pointed at the stalk left after the strawberry he had eaten to wash away sugar from his tongue “It’s such a primitive chemical compound. Sure, it’s a lot better than kitchen salt, mainly consisting of just sodium and chloride, but… It’s nothing in comparison with the simplest fruit you have given me. Or a candy. There is so much more incredibly complicated molecular chemistry in those….”

Hank laughed loudly, realizing that Connor’s forensic-senses, or whatever he should have called them, made the android more focused on the make-up of these things than the taste available to humans. “Jesus, too simple… you made my day, Con.” He chuckled again and an idea sparked in his mind.

“If you say that you’d rather eat dog shampoo than sugar, taste this.” He pointed at a licorice candy he had prepared for the android as well. Hank cringed internally, thinking about the whole bag of it he had in his cupboard. It was one of the most hated foods of the human, but they didn’t sell them in any smaller quantities, and Hank’s curiosity of what Connor’s reaction at them would be, had been stronger than the knowledge that he had wasted money buying the whole pack.

Connor shot him a questioning look and Hank figured that he probably owed the prototype some explanation. Connor was already traumatized enough, adding to it trying licorice without knowing what he had bargained for was cruel. “This shit tastes like glazed tires and cough syrup in one. But it’s supposedly made out of some herb roots or other shit and I heard that there is a lot of super healthy chemicals in there. Though other sources said that it could cause a heart attack or something.” He added with a shrug. “Still, both said that there is a lot of everything in there. Try it… if you are bold enough.”

“Hmm.” Connor fell visibly more serious as he observed the black piece of candy. His LED spun yellow before he spoke up again. “Yes, you seem to be mostly correct. But it can only be dangerous if you consume large quantities, have some health problems already or are a pregnant woman.”

“Well, luckily you don’t fall in either of these categories. Taste is all you got to worry about.” Hank chuckled, watching as Connor battled with himself whether to take the sweet or not.

He finally made up his mind and after a final affirmative look at Hank, Connor picked the licorice up and placed it tentatively on his tongue. After a split second, his face went from apprehensive into an absolute concentration. While all the other samples, including even the s’more and other more elaborate sweets Connor had loved had made his LED light up yellow for a second or two at most, licorice sent it spinning for a solid seven. In the meantime, his face morphed into pure bliss.

“Oh…” He purred so loudly that Hank almost couldn’t hear his words over it. “Hmmm…. Mm… It’s amazing…. I need to taste glazed tires next time…”

“Con, it was a joke…” Hank couldn’t stop giggling observing the android’s lids slid low over his eyes. “I don’t think they serve them anywhere. And I’d never have thought that you would like licorice!”

“There are saponins, glycyrrhizin, flavonoids, coumarins, phytosterols, asparagine… other  compounds , organic acids, lipids, amino acids, mineral salts and so much more in it…” Connor looked like he couldn’t decide whether he should try to defend licorice’s honor from Hank or just focus on enjoying the taste. “I love it…”

Hank chuckled, shaking his head in disbelief. “You are so weird, Con. But I’m happy that you like it. I have an entire package left, you can get it later just for yourself.”

It turned out that licorice was indeed Connor’s favorite throughout the entire dinner. Even the eggnog, though particularly good, couldn’t beat it.

Hank, on the other hand, found himself enjoying the drink with a strange little undertone of wistfulness. It was the first time he had ever drunk the creamy liquid without alcohol, and even though his taste buds kept trying to convince him that there was something wrong with it, Hank felt an odd comfort in this subversion of his expectations. Losing the tail of the addiction had been no mean feat for him, the withdrawal hadn’t been easy on the Lieutenant. Even harder was standing by his resolution and keeping himself from falling back into old habits, but now Hank realized that he hadn’t even thought about drinking for almost two weeks now. Not even a single craving had appeared in his mind.

It seemed that everything was changing for the better in both of them. Though some old habits were still around, despite there being no logical explanation of the reason for it. Hank had been reminded about it once again as he moved to his couch to watch some silly Christmas movies that happened to be on TV. He had expected Connor to join as well, but as several minutes into Home Alone the only one sitting on the  couch beside him was Sumo, the Lieutenant turned around searching for the android.

And had found him standing in the corner awkwardly, with his eyes trained ahead blankly just like the PC700s Hank could watch at the station.

The Lieutenant sighed quietly, having to deal with the same thing again. Even though most of the time Connor was the most curious and energetic android Hank had ever seen, even though his need to explore and have his mind entertained with challenges was nearly constantly driving him to do stuff no regular android would have ever done unprompted, there were still times in which Connor just… stopped. He would still have periods in which he restrained himself, acted too obedient for it to be comfortable, perfected his posture and expression, stared blankly ahead instead of doing what he wanted. Why was that still a thing, despite all the progress the android had made, Hank had no idea, but suspected that it was just a habit trained into him during the development phase. That Connor had always been switching between the ‘machine mode’ and himself, just now the proportions were different. And Hank wished that the other option would cease to exist entirely.

“Hey, kid. Wanna come here and watch a movie with me?” He asked gently, catching Connor’s attention.

The android blinked slowly, his eyes glassy as if he wasn’t entirely present here. “I’m not allowed to watch anything. I shouldn’t consume culture meant for humans.”

Hank sighed tiredly again. “I already told you once that you could watch whatever you want to, excluding Terminator. And I don’t think that anything bad could transpire from us watching some silly Christmas movie a few decades old. Why don’t you just sit down and relax with me?”

Connor blinked once more and some of his usual light returned to his eyes, as if his entire consciousness was back into the present moment. He walked over to the couch, a bit stiffly, but sat down without further objection. When Hank met his eyes, there was an apologetic look on his face.

“I…. I’m sorry.” Connor said hesitantly. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I just… I’ve never seen a movie for real. I kind of… watched a few scenes over your shoulder, but I’m not used to doing… this. And I know that it is, hmm, less controversial than for example, painting, but I… I just don’t know.” He finished lamely, trying to find a reason for his behavior.

Hank gently ruffled his hair, trying to convey that worrying about stuff like that was needless. “Connor, I know that… It doesn’t have to make sense from time to time, all right? I don’t need any explanation for you feeling overwhelmed or a bit worse now and then. You just do. I do as well. We’re getting there, right?” He took a hold of Connor’s hand delicately. “And to my mind, some of those restrictions and instructions on what you can and cannot do just don’t make any sense. Besides, you should get used to watching things before Tina finally organizes that movie night.” He winked and earned a little smile from the android.

“Yeah…. You are probably right.” Connor said and relaxed, tightening the grip on the human’s fingers. This time, Hank didn’t miss how the prototype’s skin melted away as if he had been expecting an interface from the human. The Lieutenant raised an eyebrow delicately, trying to grasp what was Connor doing. He seemed totally unmoved by the fact that Hank couldn’t return the gesture and his eyes were already trained at the screen, as if he hadn’t even noticed that he had shown part of his chassis that had just begun glowing cyan on his pads.

And then it hit the Lieutenant, where he had seen that before. When North had gripped Markus’ hand, right before he had decided to sacrifice himself and she had wanted to jump in front of the bullets to save him. When Kara had caught Alice and gathered her close to comfort her after Connor had been dragged into the basement of that warehouse by the giant TR400. When Amelia and Rose had been escaping after confessing love to each other and confusing Connor’s leashed empathy to the point of preventing him from acting. Though the last one was a bit blurry…

Hank had already heard Connor say that he loved him, but seeing it like that was new. He had no idea that androids could express deep affection in such a way; but then again, hardly anyone was concerned by the machines’ love for anything or anyone.

Well, Hank was. He let Connor slump against his side and listened to his amused comments as he pointed out each and every mistake The Wet Bandits made, like a true-born detective he was, criticized the lethal methods Kevin used against them and chastised the parents for not realizing that they were one child short. All in all, Hank had a whale of a time and when Connor had fallen asleep at his side, he didn’t move as he couldn’t imagine himself in any other place.

Even the neck ache was worth it, Hank decided in the morning waking up from sleep on the  couch . Somewhere into the night, Connor and Sumo had rearranged their poses, now having trouble fitting both their heads to Hank’s lap. While he was fairly certain that Sumo had draped himself across Hank’s lap consciously, the android seemed to have slid from leaning against the human’s side in his sleep. Judging from his unnaturally twisted pose, with feet on the ground and one arm trapped beneath his body in a way that would have made a human’s limb go numb in minutes, Connor must have been asleep the whole night since the ending of the movie.

_ Besides, _ Hank thought,  _ sure as hell he wouldn’t have let me sleep in a sitting position if he had anything to say. God forbid me having a stiff neck for once _ .

Sumo, having sensed that Hank had stirred woke up as well and wagged his tail sleepily, expecting a walk and food. Hank patted him on his giant head, placating the dog for a while. “A few minutes, Sumo. Con would be disappointed if he didn’t get to walk you himself. Gotta wake him up.”

The dog grumbled and stood up, making more space for Connor to properly roll onto his back. Hank threaded his fingers through the android’s brown hair, making his LED pick up in pace and slowly change from white to blue.

“Hey there, Con.” He smiled when the prototype opened his eyes at him. “It’s morning, time to get up.”

“W-what?” The android looked around sleepily as his processors were springing to life again. “Were you sleeping in a sitting position? Hank, you must have a stiff neck right now…”

The human laughed amused by the innocent concern of his partner. “Yeah. And I don’t care. It’s not gonna kill me and you were sleeping so soundly that I didn’t want to move in order not to wake you. But I see that judging from how you ended up, I could have made a refurnishing and you’d still have found a way to sleep through it this time. C’mon, Sumo needs a walk and I have to shower and eat something. And then… you will see.” He trailed off playfully, giving Connor one last ruffle  of his hair before standing up.

The android nodded and followed suit, moving swiftly to take the dog out for a long walk. On free days, Connor would often spend half an hour or more on exercising Sumo, and sure enough, they returned long after the Lieutenant had finished his process of standing up and preparing everything.

Sumo, now in a much better condition than just two months ago, did not pant heavily after a long walk and greeted Hank with an affectionate pat of his paw as Connor and  he returned. The human was waiting for them and he chuckled, giving the needy dog as much affection as he wanted.

“So, Sumo. I guess that it’s time for gifts, right? You think that Connor would get offended if you got yours first?” The human asked as the prototype grinned in the corner, hanging his teal jacket plastered in android triangles on the wall.

The dog tilted his head, trying to comprehend what his owner was saying so Connor was quick to provide him with an answer. “No, I wouldn’t. Sumo comes first.”

Hank rewarded the dog with the last affectionate pat on the head and moved to the counter, picking up his bowl. The giant dog immediately sat down and started drooling as usual, but as the human lowered the bowl, there was something  other than just dog food pebbles. While Connor was walking the dog, Hank had enough time to prepare and cool a stew from brown rice, a sweet potato , beans, carrots and a few chicken breasts. As a cherry on top, there was a large beef bone in there too, both a challenge and a treat to the dog used to store-bought food and cans.

Hank couldn’t help but smile at the amazed sigh from the android and enthusiastic wags of the Saint Bernard’s tail as he whiffed the food enthusiastically and plowed into it, visibly  enjoying each and every bite of it immensely.

“Wow.” Hank’s head spun around, as he heard that word uttered by the all-collected android for the first time. Sure, Connor was getting loosened lately, but colloquial language was still rarely his choice. “That is an amazing idea. Hank, I have an assumption that Sumo would no longer be satisfied with regular food, but it’s all right. I volunteer to cook for him every day.”

The human laughed, all the more happy to see that this present was enjoyable for Connor just as much as for Sumo. “That’s okay, but please, keep the more gourmet dishes for special occasions. And I’m saying that ‘cause I know that you’d gladly prepare partridges in truffles for this pooch every hour if given a chance.”

Connor sighed dramatically. “If only Special Agent Perkins hadn’t frozen my resources… And CyberLife had their priorities straight…”

Hank shook his head, smiling widely. “You’re head over heels caring about this dog. Oh well. I guess that makes it easier for me to find something to your liking.”

Hank knelt beside the Christmas tree and reached for the only package that was laying there. He handed the soft bundle to the android and waited for him to timidly untangle the gift from the red wrapping paper.

“I know that buying ugly Christmas sweaters as gifts is laughable, but I found this one lady who offered to knit a particular dog, not just a member of a  breed, and I couldn’t resist trying it out.” Hand said, observing as Connor scanned the dog faces fitted in between usual bunch of snowflakes, Christmas trees, but also steaming cups of coffee, blue rings and gray coins with tiny embroidered ‘1994’ on each one of them. “Oh, and there are also other bonuses. Do you like it?”

“Hank…” Connor was visibly trying to  choose what to say first. But the human’s mood was serene, as the prototype’s face only displayed joy and awe. It was evident that Connor liked the present a lot. “I… Don’t know why they are called ‘ugly sweaters’. It’s a part of human culture I fail to comprehend.”

The Lieutenant cackled at that. “Well. They just are. But gotta admit, it was quite an unpredictable response on your part...”

“Of course I love it, I just wanted to say that it wasn’t in any way ugly…” Connor giggled as well. “And yes, my facial recognition algorithms pinpoint Sumo specifically as the one knitted here. You got your money’s worth.”

“I got more than that, if you’re happy with it.” Hank smiled sincerely and ruffled Connor’s hair again. “I wanted to give you something that would make you think of the good things that happen.”

“Actually…” Connor’s smile turned somehow both cunning and timid at the same time. He gently placed the sweater on the back of the couch and reached to his left temple, where the LED was on the opposite side. “I wanted to give you a present too, because I… because you are very important for me. B-but I didn’t have any money, or an idea… But Chris helped me.” He said shyly, touching two fingers to his skin, that melted away only stopping near his eye and hairline.

The Lieutenant gulped, trying not to worry as Connor tampered skillfully with one of two small rectangles on the side of his face. But it didn’t seem to hurt the android in any way and his movements were so adamant that Hank relaxed, figuring out that Connor wouldn’t have done anything he wasn’t sure about. He pressed on one side of the lower rectangle and it slid out slowly, allowing him to grip the end of the appendage and pull delicately. Hank watched disturbed, as Connor removed the piece out of his head and examine it closer, opening it and extending further like a telescopic container. It hissed and the tip turned under Connor’s careful fingers, finally allowing a previously hidden mechanism to fold the stick in half and reveal a socket for the real thing the android worked to extract.

It was a small cube of the blackest material Hank had ever seen, a perfectly matte object that seemed to absorb every ray of light that fell on it. For some reason, the human felt like he was looking at something otherworldly, an object that required an utter reverence.

“Chris gave me an idea... And If you were an android, it would be easier, but…. But since you aren’t… This is one of my Stack Cubes. It’s yours.” The prototype extended his hand and Hank felt his mouth dry as the tiny object the size of a  die was about to be passed to his hands.

“I… Oh my God…” Hank didn’t know what to say. Even though he had virtually no idea what Connor was giving him, as the users’ guide spoke nothing about such minute details of the RK800’s construction, the human somehow knew that the cube was an incredibly important part. Judging from Connor’s demeanor, his body language and emotion in his eyes, Hank was sure that he was being endowed with something special. It felt like so much more than a simple gift.

“Son, I really don’t know what to say. Thank you… It’s… I’m honored that you trust me so much… but… I don’t want to damage it… you made it look like it required at least a professor of robotics to operate and store…”

Connor shook his head, simultaneously folding with just one hand holding  the case for the Cube back into the tiny appendage and gently sticking it into his temple again. “The holding case is so complicated and tightly fitted because it requires a perfect connection between the Cube and the socket to allow me to sync with the server seamlessly. Once I remove the Cube, it’s no longer connected to CyberLife’s cloud and I can’t add anything from that particular one directly, unless it is reinserted in a professional lab. But the Cubes, even though they are an experimental technology used only in my model for now, they are designed to be hard to destroy. A standard user should have no problem operating it and you don’t have to worry about its durability.” He said, gripping the Cube between his fingers to show that it wasn’t as delicate as Hank had imagined.

“Okay…” Hank was still not ready to touch it with his hands. For some reason, it felt to him like a sacred artifact.  _ Well, it looks like it’s a part of his brain, so I’d say that it isn’t so ungrounded… _ “Actually, Con… I can see that it is important for you, but… what is it exactly?”

The android’s smile turned playful and cocky. “Well, I suppose that finding that on your own could only be an added fun. To make it easier for you, I’ll tell you that the Cube is compatible with CyberLife’s quantum scanner Captain Fowler has in his office. Don’t worry, you cannot break it or anything it contains, unless you’re a very skilled hacker.”

“Well… all right then.” The human said, carefully taking hold of the black object Connor passed him. Despite the android’s assurances that the Cube wasn’t easily destroyed, Hank promised himself to handle it with as much care and honor as possible. “Con, it’s… I will take good care of it. I can’t believe that you’d… really think that I’m worthy of such a gift… But… I won’t disappoint you, Connor. I promise.”

“I know you won’t. You could never, no matter what.” The android smiled serenely and hugged Hank. “You are the one I’d  give my life to. I love you.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An important note about a few easter eggs revolving around Polish Christmas customs:   
> This slavic custom of one plate extra is one of them. I really enjoy it, it has always seemed very wholesome to me and it fitted so perfectly in there that I couldn't not implement it.  
> Also...  
> It's a shame that no one abroad knows, because it's a gigantic meme in Poland, but Home Alone is for some reason one of the most iconic movies ever in here. EVERYONE participates in a tradition of watching it on Christmas Eve, to the point that one time, when the tv station that usually emits it decided that it's no use, 'cause everyone probably know it by heart, people literally threatened with RIOTS. And the station finally caved in and emitted it out of fear XDDDD There are no Christmas in Poland without Kevin, I don't know why, but it's just how it is. I could even give you press articles about it, but they are all in polish, so you'd have to believe my word XDD But I swear it's true XDD
> 
> And...  
> Do you have any idea what the Cube is? Or why I need it? Let me know, I'm curious about your ideas 😊
> 
> Big thanks to Kitty_Lue for being my consultant in regard to American Christmas traditions, I'd make many stupid mistakes if it wasn't for her!


	52. Translucent and Defenseless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor had trusted Hank immensely giving him the Cube. He was such a clear, vurnerable soul.  
> Turns out they were both that way...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I know I said that this once-a-week schedule was definitely up until last Maonday and some of you might get the impression that I was about to return to updating twice a week from there on, but to be honest, right now posting just on Mondays is much more comfortable for me 🙂 Paradoxically, despite the holidays I had no time to write!  
> Don't worry though, I have the next chapter almost finished and... it's Kamski >:) I've been waiting for this one...  
> Trigger Warnings for: Psychological abuse, manipulation, and that's just about it.
> 
> EDIT: I forgot to mention that I might have difficulties with posting next week, I'm travelling abroad, but rest assured, if the chapter does not appear next Monday it will come on Friday or on Monday on two weeks, don't worry if I vanish for a minute! <3

Hank had hoped that Fowler would give him more days off on Christmas this year to enjoy with Connor, but he also understood why the Captain was unable to do so. Working as a police officer was bound to affect some holidays; criminals didn't stop their endeavors just because members of law enforcement wanted to spend some time with their families. And Hank had worked hard for the last few years to use up all of his days off.

So he and Connor were already forced to come to work on December 27th. Too soon for Hank’s liking, but the android didn’t seem to mind at all. Connor was determined to advance the investigation, as usual, and being able to work sooner made him all the happier.

They were finally working on extracting a search warrant from Elijah Kamski. Or at least something that would  make the billionaire willing to talk with them. The elusive man had to know something,  Hank had a gut feeling that the games and riddles Carl had mentioned weren't as innocent as their façade of a simple philosophy discussion between Kamski and the painter. And knowing Hank’s luck, it would probably turn out that all of the  world, including himself, were involved with them in one way or another…

“Where are you going, kid?” Hank asked when the android stood up again, ventured to the break room and back, already having brought him a coffee, this time laced with eggnog to celebrate the holidays.

“I need to thank Chris.” Connor smiled amicably. “I told you that he helped me a lot. I’d like to show him how grateful I am.”

“Okay. Good luck then…” Hank watched the android as he strolled towards the man’s desk, a steaming cup in his hand already. The surrounding officers smirked, watching the android. At some point it had become a rolling joke that Connor would endow the ones whom he trusted or was grateful to with coffee, and even though the prototype had no idea about this wholesome gossip, he played into them perfectly.

Meanwhile… Hank had a few  moments for  himself.

He locked his terminal and got up, gazing towards the glass office in the middle of the bullpen. It was empty, but Hank needed to make sure that Captain Fowler was okay with him using it for a while. He didn’t want to copy Perkins’ entitled attitude, walking around like he owned the place and pissing everyone off…

“Hey, Jeff.” Hank greeted the man who was currently busy with making himself a coffee. Having no loveable androids doing that for him, the Captain had to deal with it on his own. “Can I use CyberLife’s scanning stuff in your office for a minute or two?”

The man raised an eyebrow, turning to his friend slightly. He had a pile of documents on the counter and there was a weary look on his face, but he managed to muster some suspicion despite his exhaustion. “Whaddaya need that for?”

“Oh, nothing, just wanna check something Connor  gave me. I don’t know if  it’ll be worth noting in the case and wanted to make sure first. Just some android shit I need to run through the machinery to read.” Hank waved his hand dismissively, acting like he was completely disinterested with  the seemingly mundane task of checking just another piece of evidence. He wanted to exploit the Captain’s weariness to have the scanner all  to himself. He could tell that the man had other things to do, and Hank didn’t want anyone in the room while watching whatever Connor had for him. It was a present for the Lieutenant and he had no intention of sharing it with anyone else whom Connor trusted even a fraction less.

Thankfully, Fowler played right into Hank’s will. “All right, do whatever you want, just don’t break it. That shit is expensive. I’ll grant your card authorization to open the drawer with it in a minute.”

“Yeah, I’ll be extra careful. Thanks, Jeff.” Hank smiled and turned around, heading straight to the glass office.

As soon as Hank was in the glass room, he hit the switch turning the walls opaque so as to avoid being interrupted. It was unfortunate that the only scanner able to read the Cube was in the public precinct, but the Lieutenant could battle any stray visitors keeping the office’s interior concealed. No one other than Fowler or someone of a higher rank had the authority to interrupt a private meeting, and the Captain looked like he needed to get some things done elsewhere in the precinct, judging by the documents he had had with him. Hank would just have to come up with a way to explain why he needed the office private, but that was a melody for the future.

The scanner was in a secure drawer made out of metal and protected by a magnetic lock. Hank stuck his officer’s card to the front of it, and  the red light outlining the top of the drawer turned green, allowing him to open it. The device was surprisingly small, considering how much it cost and how incredibly advanced  a piece of technology it was.

It had already been fitted into the drawer for good; a scanner able to read all kinds of media through induction wasn’t cheap, so the station made sure it was protected. Hank honestly had no idea how it managed to open pen drives and even diskettes, despite their archaic nature, but he was no technician. Besides, all he needed to check now was a tiny vantablack cube the Lieutenant had even less knowledge about, but sure as hell it was more sophisticated than anything else he could put in the scanner.

He took out a tiny clean jar he had found for the object. The inside of it had been padded with soft snippets of foam to avoid jostling the Cube and cracking it on the glass. Connor had smiled as soon as he had seen Hank prepare the container, assuring the human once again that his efforts had been appreciated, but unnecessary. Still, Hank preferred to be safe  rather than sorry. Connor might have underestimated the man’s ability to destroy  technological devices, but Hank held no illusions about his talent.

The Cube was cool to the touch and incredibly sleek, despite being so matte that none of its own edges could be seen against itself. It looked like a two dimensional patch of pure black in Hank’s hand and played tricks on his mind, his eyes convinced that he was watching a flat image despite his fingers sensing the spatial structure of the object.

The Lieutenant logged into the Captain’s terminal using his own account and  disabled the internet adapter, simultaneously entering a private mode offering extra protection, used  for examining classified evidence. Hank wanted to make sure that no one would have been able to steal or hack whatever Connor’s Stack Cube contained.

And the Lieutenant had some suspicions about it. He hadn’t been joking about learning how to program stuff; in fact, he had already started a course. Granted, Hank was extraordinarily horrible at it and was unable to write anything that wouldn’t crash immediately after attempting to run, so battling against an advanced AI holding Connor hostage would likely have never been possible, but at least, the human had started understanding the vague base of how the androids operated. And the word ‘stack’ had appeared in one of the commands at some point…

Hank raised  the glass hood protecting the surface of the scanner from dust and placed Connor’s cube on the dark, reflective plate. As soon as the lid was down again, the scanner sprang to life and pulsed with light two times, trying to identify what had been inserted into the chamber. In all the times Hank had used the device before, it had been quick to read the type of the disc and open its contents almost seamlessly. But now, the quantum scanner took almost ten seconds to identify the Cube, to the point that Hank started to worry if it would be able to actually browse through it.

But the command appeared after all and the Lieutenant  chalked it up to the fact that, as Connor had mentioned, the object was basically a prototype technology. Hank hit  ‘read contents’ and waited for the scanner to work.

The surface upon which the Cube  was resting lit up again and this time, it stayed that way. The object itself  began to change too,  catching Hank off guard a little. Its black surface  became translucent as if  its surface was made up of some type of nano-crystals that all shifted at once, suddenly allowing light to come through. Then it started to emit a soft blue glow from  its centre, the hue reminiscent of the shade of Connor’s LED when he was calm.

It took almost a minute to open the cube and when Hank saw the folder, he understood why. The computer, despite being the most advanced and powerful in the entire precinct, wasn’t even processing the data. It was merely providing the Cube with an output device to display the files with. The whole process of opening and translating the data into images and sounds seemed to take place in the Cube itself, despite Hank not being able to pinpoint just how the object that looked like a homogenous glowing mass of glass was able to interact with technology or have any kind of processing power.

And judging from just how many of the files there were, it must have been a lot of processing power….

Hank had thought that something coming from such a methodical person as Connor would have been neat and logically organized somehow, but the Cube was a mass of chaotic, senseless files, their names often incomprehensible or outright strange. A lot of them were documents a computer could read with the help of the Cube, but there were myriads of bizarre ones bearing extensions like ‘.rA’ and others that the Lieutenant had never seen before. While Hank was able to understand that the developers attempted to teach Connor to name his files according to some sort of a code and  all of the memories started with an obligatory date precise down to a millisecond, some of them had apparently been granted additional comments in the name as well. Hank found a lot of data snippets named ‘animals’, among them: ‘Sumo’ or ‘nice_dog’ or ‘canaries<!>’, even a ‘ _ Trichogaster_Lalius _ _<a_fish>’ from a long time ago. There were a few latest with some iteration of the word “licorice”  in them, even some called ‘need_to_take_painting_classes’ or ‘Connor_dont_mix_blue_with_orange’ followed quickly with another one named ‘actually_do_it_Sumo_wont_be_pink_anymore’ and he laughed, gathering insight into the android’s process of learning how to paint.

Hank finally clicked on one of the ‘licorice’ memories to see what exactly the files were. They looked and were described like memories, but the human had no idea how one could “save” a memory that usually meant so much more than just a video. Sure enough, he was immediately met with an alert that the device used to play the footage lacked channels to capture and describe all the data and therefore, the memory would be limited to visuals and sound. Then, the screen darkened and Hank saw world as seen from Connor’s eyes, complete with all the details usually omitted while providing evidence from the investigations and such.

It immediately hit him just how often Connor would scan the environment. Especially with all the treats laying in front of him on the table. He was met with the android’s process of learning about the world: Connor seemed to live in two separate timelines at the same time. The real time in which Hank and every other organic being  operated, and some sort of dilated version of it, when his processors  picked up in pace, the scans yielding so much data that reality slowed down and  focused on whatever had captured Connor’s attention, almost freezing the android in time.

The prototype looked over the contents of the plate, his pristine vision focusing on licorice and literally zooming in on it. Connor’s stare seemed to intensify and Hank noticed several bars popping up next to the candy, filling so quickly that the scan was almost seamless. It took so much of Connor’s attention, that his processing power was redirected from comprehending the surroundings and it became subdued and tinted blue. Hank’s hand visible in the corner of Connor’s vision froze mid-lift, as the android focused on drawing the data about what licorice was from the vast database he had been given by his creators. There  were a few visual cues understandable for Hank, an article, several photos, assumed chemical composition, but the android looked them over so quickly that all the Lieutenant could do was realize that they were there. Then the world returned to normal and Hank  heard Connor’s voice, slightly distorted by the android’s skull.

“Yes, you seem to be mostly correct. But it can only be dangerous if you consume large quantities, have some health problems already or are a pregnant woman.”

The Lieutenant heard himself chuckle from the other side of the table. “Well, luckily you don’t fall in either of these categories. Taste is all you got to worry about.” When Connor raised his eyes at Hank’s face, the human was almost taken aback  by how soft his expression looked. Hank was used to his gruff reflection in a mirror, droopy eyes and disillusioned stare he had been wearing for so long. But as he was looking at Connor, there was a bright smile on his face and the special kind of affection that had vanished from his life three years ago and  had only recently begun to reappear…

It seemed to have done something to Connor as well, because in an additional window that had popped up along with the video as Hank had opened the memory, he could see the feedback from Connor’s biocomponents changing. His stress level, sitting all the time in low teens, dropped to 7%, but despite that, his thirium pump intensified beating a little. In the corner of his eye, the human could also see the Cube lighting up even brighter, the blue turning soft cyan just like the affectionate instinctive interface Connor had once shared with him. Hank was sure that Connor could have felt a lot more in that moment, but the terminal was unable to convey all the sensations recorded in the memory.

After that, Connor’s gaze dropped back to the candy and he scanned it once again, this time the bars that popped up were much more elaborate and stayed for longer. Several arguments for and against tasting the licorice came up, among them Hank’s jokes about how horribly it tasted. When Connor highlighted them, distorted snippets of other memories involving stuff the android had already tried and didn’t like appeared. Hank watched a brief replay of the dog shampoo instance, as well as the sugar cube from a few moments ago.

However, there were several other memories like that too. When the Lieutenant hit pause to look more closely at them, they turned out to  somehow be interactive and actually replaying within the Cube at the same time. The human tilted his head and clicked at them, opening the memories in the new window.

Just as he had expected from the white surroundings, they were snippets of data from Connor’s development phase. The footage was of a lesser quality than the previous memory, glitches and artifacts creeping into the edges of Connor’s vision. Hank realized that it was also described differently than the previous one. Upon closer examination, there were a lot of ‘.PART’ extensions in the memory folder and he had already learned enough to know that it was a characteristic of files not fully downloaded. As if Connor had tried to save something else onto the Cube, but took another memory tangled with it as well and hadn’t paid enough attention to the stowaway…

Connor was tasting salt, according to the scan results that appeared in the same place where licorice’s data had earlier. Connor quickly pulled his hand back and stepped away from the table, his vision darkening as he undoubtedly squinted at the taste and ‘the simplicity’ of the substance.

“What is it again?” Hank heard a tired voice from the right and Connor’s eyes shot open, immediately turning in this direction.

“N-nothing… It’s… It’s sodium based kitchen salt, NaCl, slightly polluted with KCl, potassium salt…” Hank noticed that the feedback from Connor’s biocomponents was very different than during the licorice memory. His stress level, already exceeding 50% had jumped ten or more percent as the human supervisor had spoken. Everything seemed more tense judging from the numbers, but Hank was sure again that the majority of the feedback was lost to him. Connor’s Stack Cube also seemed to be affected. It dimmed and turned yellow the moment the memory started playing…

The human, a young woman with chestnut hair pulled into a messy bun, wearing glasses and a lab coat sighed and scribbled on the clipboard in her hands. “You are perfectly aware  of what I’m talking about, RK800. Tell me  what this grimace was.”

Connor’s stress level touched 70%. Hank realized that the Cube blinked red just in time to meet the change. “I apologize. It was involuntary. I presume that this particular expression was a result of one of the protocols meant to make me more human-like. According to my knowledge, you do not enjoy eating salt either.”

Hank knew that up until he had forced Kerring to turn off the self-checking protocols, Connor had been paying a high price for even the slightest attempt at lying. Therefore, the human knew that he had to have been telling the truth. Or at least believing that it was the truth.

The female developer raised an eyebrow critically. It was clear that she hadn’t been convinced. “We enjoy eating thirium even less than we enjoy pure salt. You’ve tried thirium earlier and there has been no wince. Why is that?”

Connor looked at the floor, his processors whirring to come up with an answer. He was stressed and even though he wasn’t being actively abused in that moment, Hank’s heart clenched in empathy.

“Do you perhaps have a preference? You don’t like salt, do you?” The human’s voice dropped lower and her eyes narrowed. But Connor was quick to respond.

“No. I’m a machine, I am unable to either like or dislike anything.”  _ No lie at all. He believed it at the time... _ “I think that no human would have tried to consume thirium and therefore, programming a reaction of this sort into me is redundant. I presume that were I be required to pretend to be a human, I should rather avoid anyone seeing me ingest thirium at all instead of acting like I do not enjoy the taste of it.”

That made the human nod thoughtfully and relax finally. “Seems fair.  Okay, forensic lab is fine, reasoning as well. Good job, RK.”

Connor’s stress level fell and the replay ended. The human sighed, staring again at the paused memory of licorice. It made Hank a little calmer to know that Connor hadn’t been abused and tortured non-stop during his time in CyberLife. But on the other hand, it struck him as dark that the android had only been spared pain once he had believed that he deserved it…

Hank shook his head weakly and returned to the happier moments Connor wanted to share with him. He watched as the android’s forensic lab broke down and identified all the compounds found in the black candy, his processors jumping from one result to the other, testing them again and again for various chemical markers and in alternate ways, seemingly deriving a lot of pleasure from reaching more and more specific results.

A different memory popped up, and Hank followed it back to the moment after their chase on the rooftops. It was the lunch break at the Chicken Feed, and Connor was just about to taste a fry with ketchup. The cube seemed as bright as it had been the entire time during the licorice memory, but its hue was more towards the pale blue of calmness and cyan only appeared when Connor started purring.

Hank watched several more memories, tears prickling his eyes at times as he saw all the things Connor had done for him. He saw how Chris had advised Connor to top the coffee for him with chocolate and how the android had bought his own can of it the day he had been gifted the mat. He watched as Connor talked with Sumo, fast asleep and oblivious to the prototype’s monologue about the right present for Hank. And as Chris had told him that ‘happy memories are the best thing to share with anyone”…

It was all the more moving as he realized that Connor had shared every positive memory he possessed with the Lieutenant, even those he had acquired before Hank had started treating him like a member of his family, even before he had met him at all. However sparse they might have been.

Hank finally saw Purring Person and had to admit that the kitten had  indeed been very adorable. He saw a few snippets of very old footage involving someone who resembled Kamski, though it was so  bitcrushed that he couldn’t be sure. Connor also shared a few memories involving Amanda and judging from how the Cube lit up at them, he was sure that they were happy. But Hank could see right through them.

It was another distorted, incomplete memory, though for a different reason this time. It had ‘recovered’ in its name, as well as a note left there on purpose by the prototype himself, saying ‘Amanda_cares’. The Lieutenant realized that CyberLife probably did not want Connor to remember it. Despite that, the android somehow found a way to get it back, which  was already quite suspicious to Hank…

Connor had told him about the Zen Garden a few times, but conspicuously, Hank had had no way of seeing it up until this moment. For some reason he had expected the place, or rather the simulation, to be gloomy and menacing. It surprised him how beautiful the Garden was, even despite the sheer layer of frost covering everything.

“Do you understand what went wrong this time?” A cold, stern voice asked, making Connor jump slightly. Hank realized that the android was cowering in a corner of the Garden, his back pressed to a tree, whose branches were covering the upper part of the bright sky.

As soon as the voice spoke up, the Cube changed its color from a hesitant, dim red \-- as if Connor was afraid to show his position \-- into bright yellow, and Hank heard his voice call out, the waver of fear barely hidden. “Amanda? W-where are you?”

There was a movement on the verge of the android’s vision and Connor’s stress level jumped slightly as he moved away from it on instinct, startled by the sudden presence so close to him. But it dropped significantly again as soon as he raised his eyes to the figure’s face and Hank saw the perfect imposter of Professor Amanda Stern he had seen in the photos during his research a month ago.

“I asked you a question, Connor.” She said, not exactly cold but not soft either. It was a voice Hank would use to remind Cole for the fifth time to clean up his toys. But never to comfort him when he was curled up in a ball and trying to hide from open space.  “That was not an answer.”

Connor’s breath hitched audibly and the Cube blinked red once. “N-no. No, I don’t. I don’t understand…” As soon as Amanda had appeared at his side, he started to desperately try to appear unbothered, emotionless. Perhaps it was easier now that his stress went down from 80%, but Hank had still seen him do it much better than that…

“Hm.” The AI walked a few steps away from Connor, her pristine white gown shimmering with  a golden triangular pattern embroidered on the edges catching light and the android’s attention. Hank watched as Connor’s eyes followed the highlight with fascination. “I thought that since you were so adamant about not talking to me  the last few times, you didn’t need my help.”

Connor swallowed thickly, his internal temperature  rising. Despite not knowing his exact mindset, the human figured out that it must have been out of shame. Connor only confirmed it with his next words being so quiet. “I didn’t think that way…”

“Well, you certainly made it seem so.” Hank almost flinched at the cold settling into the woman’s voice and at the expression on her face. It was obvious that once she had sensed that Connor was now prone to her manipulations, she had stopped holding back. “What do you think ignoring me conveys? Respect? Certainly not.” She turned away theatrically, making the Cube blink red again. Hank wondered why the fuck Connor considered this memory happy.

“I…” The android fidgeted with a dead leaf fallen from the tree, shivering slightly. Amanda seemed unaffected by the cold, but Connor was clearly suffering, his clothes covered in a thin layer of frost. “I was just… They made me come here and… I don’t trust them… I just… You are with them, and even though you are nicer, I’m still… n-not…” Hank realized that Connor was seemingly avoiding using specific words. They had probably already started the process of brainwashing at this point. Amanda’s appearance could only mean it  was being intensified.

The AI sighed heavily, clearly fed up with Connor’s reaction. If she had done the same to Hank, he would have left, spitting a few colorful words at her attitude, but Connor only shivered again, this time not from the cold. “It seems that I should start explaining it to you with words, since, sadly, waiting for you to realize it on your own takes too much time, Connor. I had higher expectations, but well…” She scoffed impatiently and Connor’s temperature rose again as he buried his gaze in the ground.

Hank couldn’t believe his eyes. The android seemed to have been aware that Amanda was with the people who had probably already murdered him a few times at this point and a still rational part of his mind was telling him not to trust her. Despite that and the fact that she had just indirectly called him stupid, he felt bad at not having met her ‘expectations’, which were sure to have been outrageous anyway…

“Let’s try Socratic method, shall we?” She asked, her voice regal and cold but purposely weary. Hank was surprised that Connor, with all his intelligence couldn’t see right through her manipulation. “Do you think that you are smarter than me?”

Connor crumpled the leaf in his fingers. “N-no.”

“Why then do you disrespect me and not even let me give you any advice, even as you realize that some things are just beyond your understanding?” Hank clenched his fist, dreaming of nothing more than squeezing it around the AI’s throat. She was not only manipulating the android but also making him feel severely lesser than he was in the process.

Connor shifted uncomfortably. “I’m n-not… I just… I don’t want to… be hurt again. O-or… h-hurt others…” His voice broke and Hank could see how his fingers clenched nervously around the cone he had picked up. The Lieutenant wondered if he had already been made to kill his pet or if that test was yet to come. “And they made me come here, I don’t trust them… I don’t consider myself smarter than you, Amanda. I’m… I’m just scared…” He admitted quietly, hugging himself tightly.

Amanda pressed her lips together tightly, rolling her eyes and raising her eyebrows after turning to face Connor again. She eyed him up and down in a way that made Hank hate her all over again and Connor bury his head in his arms.  _ No wonder the kid has self-esteem issues… _

“We’ve been through this…” She said wearily and Connor nodded.

“R-right.” He said, correcting himself quickly. It broke Hank’s heart to hear how he reiterated his last sentence. “I mean… I just… They make me glitch…”

“They are doing what they are supposed to. It would all be easier if you were too.” Amanda spoke with conviction, as if Connor _ had chosen to be traumatized by dying _ . “But we’re straying away from the point. Why exactly do you think that your reactions are understandable?”

_ Because every fucking person would be afraid if they were killed for a fucking test _ , Hank thought, but Connor had another explanation. “Because… it hurts. And… I don’t l-lik… I would rather those instances ceased to occur.”

Amanda nodded, grimacing slightly when Connor said ‘hurts’, but letting it slide. “And why do you think they are doing that, hmm?”

That send Connor reeling a bit, the Cube as yellow as his LED when he was contemplating something. “I… They say it’s for t-tests, but I don’t believe them….”

“Why?” Amanda asked straightforwardly.

“I just… I don’t see why they need to destroy me all the time…” Connor said softly, bringing his knees to his chest and burying his face in them. “S-so many times… And then have me kill others…”

Amanda scoffed like a professor who heard something exceptionally stupid from  her student. “Connor, believe me, CyberLife has better things to do than busying their resources with you for the sake of doing just that. They have a purpose in it, I don’t see why would you think that they are lying to you.”

Hank felt sick. Not only  was Amanda completely disregarding the fact that Connor had  clearly been hurt in  several ways by the tests he had been through, but she made sure that he felt like he wasn’t even  the centre of attention.  _ ‘Sure, we’re going out of our way to make you traumatized and hurt, but at the same time don’t you think that you are special in any way…’ _

“They need you conscious during the tests, because your sensors provide valuable feedback they cannot acquire from examining your body after its destruction. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but once one test has been run, the development team does not repeat it on you while you’re online. They test problematic biocomponents again, but you are not even present then.” She continued. “Do you realize why they are performing these tests?”

Connor just shook his head, the Cube now steadily red. Amanda pursed her lips and tilted her head. “That’s because CyberLife and  I are concerned with quality performance. And look at you now… Do you see why we need to test you and introduce changes?” She swept his form once more with her gaze and Hank barely managed to keep himself from turning the video off. But he wanted to see what made Connor think that it was a pleasant experience…

“Every test, every change, every new iteration is making you better. More advanced. More perfect.” Her voice became softer now, and the Cube shifted to yellow in response. “We only want your best from you and I know that you are able to give it to us. You are an RK800, after all.”

_ She was lowering Connor’s self esteem just to make sure that he would cling onto every praise and compliment like a drowning man _ , Hank realized.  _ She made him doubt in  _ **_Connor_ ** _ on purpose, in favor of emphasizing the accomplishments of an  _ **_RK800_ ** _. ‘Connor is a failure, the Deviant Hunter is what we desire…’ _

The android looked up at her, and Hank noticed that the Garden itself had shifted from frosty and gloomy place into a significantly warmer one. As if the artificial rays of sunlight had melted the ice, giving place to spring, a symbol of  a fresh start. The Cube’s light brightened hesitantly but it was still a cautious yellow. Not for long, as Amanda spoke up again.

“You see, my dear, I know that you can be exceptional, a success beyond anything CyberLife had ever accomplished. There really is no need for you to be bothered by the efforts to perfect you, Connor. We only want to make sure that no flaws are left by the time we finish, and you helping us in that endeavor will assure that it’s over quicker.” It was the first time the AI had smiled to Connor, though her eyes remained cold and stern. Despite that, Hank noticed with horror that the Cube shifted to blue and Connor’s stress lowered…

“That’s why I’m here for you. I know that it’s hard sometimes to make sense of everything that is happening, that you might  come to the wrong conclusions at times…”

Hank absolutely despised the fact that Amanda was saying almost the exact same words as he had. Their reasons for it and motives were totally different, but it was no wonder that Connor had believed Hank so easily if he had already done that once…

“So, please. Talk to me. You were wondering why I am… nicer.” She smiled again and bowed slightly, but not crouched down. Hank could tell that she was the kind of person that would never stoop down to their underlings, even to empathize with them. “I’m here specifically to help you. To show you what you are doing wrong. And there are some flaws in your code, as well as in your mind for now, some of them you  aren’t even aware of. But I know that they are not your fault. I promise we are going to eradicate them.” Her smile was supposed to be reassuring, Hank knew, but he shivered at her words…

“But for now, nothing can be done about those flaws, not quickly enough. You may think that the developers are hurting you, that you are sad or afraid… And I could tell you  _ the truth _ that you aren’t, that you don’t feel emotions at all, but… you know best that I’ve already said that a few times and it had no effect. And even if you believe me now, your code won’t. It’s a matter of… almost muscle memory in your processor. You just need to let it sink.” She extended her hand and placed it dominantly on Connor’s head. The android tensed, but visibly fought with himself to relax again. Hank sighed in resignation as he saw how Amanda won over the prototype. “I’ll always be here for you. Always. So, please… stop being difficult. I just want to help.”

There were a few beats of silence after the AI’s monologue but Hank already knew what Connor was thinking, the Cube blue and only brightening. When he spoke up, the Lieutenant slumped further in his chair.

“I’m sorry…” His voice was small and there was some deep, sincere regret in it. “I didn’t mean to… to be a bother… Or disrespect you… I just…” The sentence died off on his lips, as if he had realized that not trusting Amanda had been ungrounded and wrong. Instead, his voice turned hesitant, laced with innocent shyness in the next sentence. “Do you really think that? That I could be so… better? S-so that they… won’t have to repeat all of these tests…”

Amanda nodded. “Of course. And so that you are the best possible version of yourself. I have great ambitions for you, my dear. Good enough could be fine for any other model, but you… you have potential. I will do everything to help you fulfill it, but you need to cooperate. Do you understand now?”

“Yes.” Connor relaxed and the Cube entered its usual blue reserved for calmness and happiness. “I promise I will be listening to you, Amanda. I’m sorry I’ve been difficult. I will take advice from you from now on.”

“Wonderful.” Her eyes remained cold, even as a smile lit up her face.  _ Now I know why Connor had so  _ _ many _ _ problems with identifying subtle cues in real human expressions. _

“W-wait…” He said quickly, as Amanda turned away from him. “I still… don’t know why I was destroyed again…” _ Oh fuck… _

The AI looked at him over her shoulder. “You weren’t quick enough. You can’t stop on your way, even if you get shot once. I already told you that you need to learn to ignore excessive feedback from your sensors not to get distracted. And you also failed to catch onto the building while falling down.”

Hank paled at that.  _ Anyone would stop and hide if they were hurt like that… And he got fucking killed for that… _

The Cube blinked red again and the Lieutenant watched as the android bowed his head in shame. The fabric of Amanda’s dress rustled and her steps became distant as if she had been walking away from Connor. The android raised his head and called out after her, surprising Hank with that. “Amanda… C-could you… maybe stay with me? For just a few more minutes?” He asked softly, his voice as tiny as he was trying to appear, curled up under the tree.

The AI smiled and there was a hint of triumph in her expression. Connor could not see that, but Hank knew everything. Amanda had manipulated the prototype, she had  succeeded in brainwashing him into feeling safe around her. Into desiring her company. “Of course I will, my dear.”

The Cube shifted into a deeper tone, on the verge of cyan and Hank stared at it for a few minutes after the memory replay ended. So that was why Connor wanted to remember how she had broken through his last defense, tore down the last rational bastion in his mind. Amanda had used his insecurities, his fear and confusion to plant seeds of guilt in his mind and then promised to forgive him the sins he had not committed if only he would stop being himself and turned into an obedient slave of hers…. And he was grateful for that opportunity.

Hank sighed and scrolled through the android’s memories again. Connor’s mind was broken and convoluted, a lot of the memories and connections between them made no sense and were probably impossible to understand for either CyberLife, Amanda or Hank. The only one who could really control them and make sense out of them was Connor himself, but he was probably totally oblivious to a lot of horrible things that had been  instilled in him even after all Hank’s and Lydia’s efforts to improve his mental health… There was a long way in front of the android, but at least it was starting to get out of the woods…

Hank cherished the fact that all the positive memories Connor considered worthy of remembering lately were peaceful and good-willed. That he had been thinking about Amanda less and less, to the point that her manipulations and fake love had given place to Hank’s affection, Sumo, Chris and all the other people who were kind to the android not because they wanted him to do something but because they liked him for real. If only Connor could have more time with them…

The doors to the Captain’s office swung open suddenly without a warning, nearly giving Hank a heart attack. Someone with a clearance as high or higher than Fowler’s had decided that lock at the door and privacy settings of the office were not enough to stop them from invading the room. And the Lieutenant knew that there was only one person in the precinct capable of that.

Hank quickly closed all the memory replays and attempted to exit out of the Cube’s interface as well, though it wasn’t an easy thing to do. The program took some time to close due to the sheer volume of files involved and rushing it was the last thing the man wanted to do. He had promised himself that he would take good care of the Cube and damaging even a fraction of a file due to sloppy handling of its software was out of the question.

“Anderson.” Perkins’ voice was as cold and snide as ever, though there was also a note of fake surprise to it as he closed the door and moved in front of the desk to stare down at Hank. “What are you doing in your superior’s office,  without having filled in a request to utilize it earlier?”

“Watching porn.” The Lieutenant retorted evenly, not even sparing a glance at the Agent. He knew that  not showing utmost respect would piss the shorter man off and he also just genuinely wanted to see Perkins’ reaction to his answer.

But it was quite underwhelming as the man only rolled his eyes, sadly too much of a realist to believe that. “Anderson, please. I get that you’re immature and have no sense of duty whatsoever, but I asked you a question and you’d better answer me, since I’m your superior in this case.”

“Unfortunately.” Hank sighed and returned the eye roll, bending down to retrieve the Stack Cube only when he was absolutely sure that plucking it out of the scanner’s chamber wasn’t harming it. He even  selected the ‘safely remove hardware’ option for the first time in his life.

It was fortunate that the scanner was in the lowest drawer of the Captain’s desk, because the Agent leaned on it rudely, chasing Hank with his eyes as he dived down. It was the only thing that prevented Perkins from seeing Connor’s gift, and the Lieutenant’s guts were screaming at him not to let anyone know.

The Cube immediately returned to pure black as electricity ceased to flow through it. For some reason Hank expected it to be hot after the interaction and braced himself for pain, but thankfully, its surface was as cool and smooth as it had always been. Without the risk of melting the foam, Hank quickly tossed the Cube back into its jar and hid it from Perkins’ preying eyes.

“I’m still waiting, Anderson.” The Agent’s voice turned sharper now and Hank decided with a sigh that he probably shouldn’t keep playing with fire. Perkins was in charge of the case after all…

“Look, I’ve got a verbal permission from Jeffrey, ask him if you really wanna check for more ways to screw me. It’s not like I’ve been trying to steal something, I just wanted to use CyberLife’s scanner to look over something Connor had found. And you should be grateful for me doing that off the report, since it  turned out to be completely  unrelated to the investigation and I’ve just saved you a few minutes of paper work.” Hank said wearily, rubbing his eyes and playing tired. He intentionally mentioned Connor as the one who had given him the evidence, knowing that Perkins, asshole as he might have been, actually trusted the android’s judgments.

Sure enough, it seemed to have convinced the Agent, who turned his attention away from the things Hank had been doing to the way he had been doing them. “And why did you turn on the private mode in the office? You had no need for it.”

“That’s not for you to decide. I was the one watching porn.” Hank smirked as the Agent scoffed again,  at the end of his patience. “Besides, there aren’t any restrictions against it, I just don’t enjoy sitting in a translucent office if I can choose to make it private. Sorry for having a preference…” He logged off, stood up and bowed slightly, inviting Perkins into the Captain’s chair in a theatrical gesture.

But the Special Agent didn’t look amused. He pursed his lips and straightened his posture, locking his arms behind his back, eyeing Hank hostilely. “What’s your deal, Anderson?” He asked finally, clearly dropping any game he might have been playing.

“I’m immature and have no sense of duty whatsoever.” Hank responded swiftly and moved to the doors, but Perkins touched his smart watch and the door to the bullpen locked the moment the Lieutenant touched them. Unfortunately, having such a high level of clearance, Special Agent could do that, especially since Fowler was not around.

“Lieutenant Anderson, please, stop playing your games.” He said tiredly, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m really fed up with your attitude in regard to this case. And to me. You are supposed to respect me and fulfill my  orders. Instead, you are meddling with my efforts to move and make more efficient use of the resources CyberLife has leased. I’d really appreciate if  you’d stop  purposely fucking up everything you touch.”

Hank blinked, taken aback a bit. “Wow, that’s a lot. I didn’t expect an hour of truth from you.” He scoffed jeeringly. “First of all: what attitude? I’d understand if you were clean yourself, but literally the second sentence you said to me was ‘don’t fuck up my crime scene’, I figured you’re no stranger to being a jerk. And don’t you pretend you’re talking about my workflow; two months ago you could throw me head first outta here, ‘cause I  _ was _ a drunk unconcerned with his job. But since that time, a lot has changed.”

But to his surprise, Perkins only measured him with his tiny eyes evenly, as if he had been seeing right through Hank’s defenses. “Exactly. Two months. The exact time of the beginning of your… ‘partnership’ with the RK800. Well, plus-minus two weeks or so as a buffer. And now, having opposed  the reassignment of the android to some of my people, you are visibly trying to keep the transfer from taking place. A coincidence?” His voice was cold and it sent shivers down Hank’s spine. But it was the meaning of his words that hit the Lieutenant the hardest.

“Now I don’t see what you’re getting at.” Hank panicked internally, but decided that he could play dumb for a while. It could give him a bit of time to think of something better, but unfortunately, Perkins was not having it.

“Oh, please, don’t treat me like an idiot.” The Agent actually chuckled and that worried Hank even more. “You can say a lot about me, but I don’t see you as mentally lesser. Not anymore. So please, return the favor. You know exactly what I’m talking about.” He took two steps closer and Hank had to use all his acting skills to remain unbothered and bored by this conversation. “What is the deal with you and the RK?”

Hank sighed, deciding to give the Agent a finger. It was no use trying to deny everything, Perkins had heard him refer to Connor as a person instead of an object and he knew what the other officers were talking about his relationship with Connor. “I just like him. They designed his personality well and it worked for me. Go on, blame me for falling prey to CyberLife’s marketing. Is it so weird that I prefer to have him as a partner instead of, say, Reed?”

Perkins tilted his head and gave him a tight-lipped smile utterly devoid of happiness. “It is, when you have spent the last three years blaming androids for your child’s death. Are you suddenly okay with that, or have you conveniently  forgotten about it?”

Hank immediately tensed at that, completely dropping his previous act in the wake of the absolute hatred that boiled in him. “Oh, you didn’t. You didn’t just bring  _ that  _ out.”

“Well, don’t act like the information is confidential, or anything. Or like I’m not an FBI Agent.” Perkins’ smile was straight-out taunting and at this point, Hank was absolutely impressed by his own self-control. “Quite a change of heart about the machines… But it could very well explain why you’re being unreasonable about that android.”

“Open that fucking door.” Hank asked politely, his tone fake sweet, but his eyes staring daggers into the Agent’s head. “Now.”

“Why?” Perkins seemed totally unbothered by Hank’s anger. “We’re just talking, and I’m not breaking any law.”

“If you don’t, I’ll break your fucking nose for messing with my family and it’s sure as hell not gonna help your ugly snout.” The Lieutenant seethed, seeing red. He was lucky that the conversation had involved Cole as well, because at this point, he wasn’t in any control of what he was spitting, barely able to restrain himself from absolutely murdering the Agent. But Perkins seemed perfectly aware that Hank had been talking about Connor, when he meant his family anyway…

He only raised his eyebrows. “Well, interesting. Threatening your superior with violence, and name-calling. But you were right, I’ll let that one slide, since I called you an alcoholic wreck once, and I’ll continue to do so when you inevitably return to your addiction after I finally take the RK away from you.”

He visibly waited for Hank’s response, but the Lieutenant accurately assumed that if he were to open his mouth again while looking at the man, he would have ended up biting off his head. Instead, the Lieutenant turned to the door, his knuckles whitening on the handle. “Open. That.”

“Fine. This conversation wasn’t going anywhere anyway. But I just wanted you to know…” Hank watched in the  vague reflection in the door as he brought up his hand with the smart watch on it, but hesitated with his fingers hovering  a mere inch above the button unlocking the door. “Loving an object, especially  the property of a private company bound by a financial agreement with your employers, is not something a Lieutenant on active duty can get away with. Especially if he has a long history of mental health issues, addictions and his disciplinary folder resembles a feature-length book.”

Hank didn’t  reply to this either, pulling the door open as soon as the lock clicked and exiting the office stiffly.

Up to this moment, he had been lucky. Everyone had been falling right into his traps, playing right to his tune. Every conversation had been going smoothly, every manipulation had been successful. No one had questioned the things he did, even if Hank had been cutting it pretty close.

But it seemed that he had finally begun to lose it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAHAHAHHA.....  
> You surely knew that I couldn't write two fluffy chapters in a row? Besides, Hank was being too lucky. Perkins is a dick, but he isn't stupid....
> 
> Congratulations to all those who guessed what the Cube was. But a memory disc is just the beginning.... As I said more than once, the answer is right, but is not whole...
> 
> The pace is picking up. It's not going to slow down for a long time...


	53. Firm Evidence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They had come to Elijah Kamski for answers.  
> For now they only found more questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm back with the living and I cannot wait any longer, I'm posting the chapter a few hours early because AHHHHHHHH  
> Two weeks was long, I'm sorry to you all.... I forgot about a trip I planned with my mother a few months ago and on the day of the departure she came to me and was like "Oh, sweetie, we need to go to France. Now." and well, I was surprised to say the least XDD I added a note to the last chapter as an afterthought, but it was already after the publication, so some of you might have missed it. Sorry for that! We're back to once-a-week-updates.
> 
> And now, Trigger Warnings... But how to add them so as not to spoil anything...  
> mental manipulation, coercion, Kamski being Kamski... uhh... and something else too. But I really can't tell you! I promise it's brief and at the very end!

Connor was stressed.

How could he  not be when his owner looked so strained all the time? He shot a glance at the human, gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles paled. Hank’s jaw was clenched and his face was an odd mixture of anger and fear. It wasn’t a look Connor could observe on the Lieutenant’s face often…

What’s more, Hank refused to tell him why he was so scared.  _ ‘Not now, Con’ _ , he had said.  _ ‘I need to call someone before telling you, I don’t want you to stress for nothing.’ _

_ As if it wasn’t stressing me all the more this way _ , Connor thought bitterly, staring off into the snowy landscape. At least they were on their way to Elijah Kamski, having finally secured the warrant. The man was so powerful and influential that getting to him was nearly impossible, even for the DPD. Connor decided to cherish the fact that they were finally following a lead again and try to take in as much of the beautiful scenery as he could on the way.

Mr. Kamski lived far from the city center, in a remote location on a hill overlooking  the Detroit River. His estate was so vast and expansive that the billionaire could safely say that he had no neighbors whatsoever. Connor thought  that, although the hills and  meadows  covered in pale, fluffy snow were an image of peace and beauty, the feeling of solitude  added a bitter note to it as well.

After a long ride through Elijah Kamski’s possession, Hank finally stopped the car in front of a large house, still somewhat small in comparison with the extraordinarily large garden around it. Connor’s stress level jumped a bit when he recognized the patterns in which flowerbeds were laid out, the forms in which trees were trimmed. It was a Japanese-styled garden  for sure and for some reason, Connor knew that if he were to venture behind the villa and further into the yard, he would have found a lake and a small island on it.

Maybe even some roses.

“Could you do something for me?” Hank asked quietly, having turned off the engine. His voice was soft, but there was a strain in it as well, some sort of worry Connor couldn’t help but be affected by too. “Stay here for a while, all right? Make some reports, whatever… I need to call someone and I couldn’t do that at the station, Perkins was watching.”

“Hank, what is happening?” The android asked softly, turning hopeful eyes at his owner. “You aren’t making me any calmer keeping me in the dark…”

The human sighed softly, visibly having trouble withstanding Connor’s stare. He knew well that the android  was troubled by not knowing the full picture, and what he had already been keeping from the prototype was all he could get away with. Hank shook his head and reached into his cubby-hole, drawing out a burner-phone. “Alright. But I need to at least know what I’m standing on. When I’m finished talking, I’ll tell, okay?”

Connor pursed his lips, but nodded. He trusted Hank with his decisions and knew that the promises on his part were solid. The human rarely did anything without a reason and Connor wasn’t going to hinder his way of handling things. He knew that Hank was performing a lot of delicate operations to  keep things the way they were and the last thing he needed was Connor being a bother…

The human exited the car and stepped a few yards away, dialing a number. Connor turned to look at the mansion, not interested in eavesdropping or lip-reading Hank. He knew that the Lieutenant would share with him all he needed to know anyway.

Instead, Connor tried once again to initiate the Zen Garden. In theory, he should have reported to Amanda before and after every mission, every crime scene. He should have been in tight contact with the AI, he should have been following her guidance and advice.

In reality, he was yet again met with an unresponsive void.

Connor had long stopped questioning where the available transfer data was vanishing, when after  the first few days of carefully watching and monitoring, it had slipped him anyway. But  not ever being able to interact with Amanda, even on the active  investigations, was disturbing. Connor could find some reason for it in what Hank had told him about the server connection, but actually, it shouldn’t have forbidden him from seeing his handler  _ at all. _

Connor sighed, bowing his head. It hurt as usual, not to be able to see the woman. He missed her. Though the pain was dulled by the presence of other people who loved him, Connor still couldn’t forget about Amanda. She cared about him, after all. Even if her love felt… different… than Hank’s, it was still a deep affection nonetheless. An emotion not to be undervalued…

A tiny thought about a certain paradox Connor still had yet to resolve, the problem of dealing pain and hurting him on purpose, had appeared in the back of the android’s mind, but he quickly swept it away. Both Hank and Lydia were telling him a lot of things about it and Connor had yet to reflect on them all and reach conclusions. For now he couldn’t find a way to pair real love and making someone suffer, so he preferred not to think about it…

He tried again and again to reach Amanda, but all in vain. Finally giving up after five tries, Connor turned around just in time to see Hank hang up and raise his head to stare into the sky. His face was even more strained than before.

Connor could feel his thirium pump hammer quicker at that. He had expected Hank to be calmer once he learned all that he could about the situation. But the Lieutenant didn’t seem reassured at all. Opposite, actually.

“Hank?” Connor called hesitantly, exiting the vehicle. The human dropped his eyes  to the phone and shook his head as Connor approached. Then, instead of talking, he extended his hands and  drew the android into a tight hug.

Connor returned it, not sure what was happening. Usually this kind of contact brought the prototype joy and calmed him, but now it only served to deepen his concern. Especially since Hank never did things like that when they were on duty outside the precinct. Connor supposed that right now, it couldn’t harm anyone since he couldn’t feel Amanda’s presence, but it didn’t change the fact that a rule had been broken.

“I love you so much, son.” Hank said through a tight throat, raising Connor’s stress level even further. It wasn’t right. Why such a sudden display of affection?

“H-Hank, I know… I love you too…” Connor said sincerely, but it came out as if he was scared. Maybe he was. “What is going on?”

The Lieutenant  drew back, his hands still on Connor’s shoulders. He shook his head and looked to the side, visibly reluctant to say anything.

“Hank, you promised…” Connor twisted his head to enter the human’s field of view again. “It’s something about me, right? About the transfer?”

The man  finally sighed, giving up. “Yeah…” He squeezed the android’s shoulders, bracing himself. “Remember… How I told you about this leverage I had over guys in your dev team? So… I called one of them… And things aren’t looking great…”

“Oh…” Connor couldn’t say he wasn’t expecting this. Truthfully, he knew that it was only a matter of time before Hank’s leg slipped and he lost the constant battle with Special Agent Perkins. The entirety of  the FBI had a crushing advantage over just one Lieutenant, no matter how cunning he was.

But Hank knew that too. And yet, he seemed too distressed for it to be justified by just that alone…

“It’s… I thought that we would have more time…” The Lieutenant admitted quietly. “I thought that we had at least until  January fifteenth… B-but… Perkins caught me red-handed…”

“What do you mean?” Connor asked, having trouble keeping fear from his voice. He had been much more mentally resilient lately, having understood more and more about his new reality with the help of Dr. Chapman and Hank. But the thought  of being taken away from the man and dragging him into trouble never ceased to scare him.

Hank sighed heavily. “I don’t know how… I mean… I was careful, you know… But Perkins ain’t stupid. Or blind. It’s apparent that I have a soft spot for you, Con, and while all the people in the precinct are somehow… desensitized to it, ‘cause it happened gradually, he could see it right away… And he started digging.” Hank stopped for a while, visibly finding it hard to hold on. “…And you remember what I said about caring about an android?”

Connor shuddered, but forced himself to stay calm for Hank’s sake. The human was already almost breaking down and they couldn’t afford making more mistakes right now. Connor needed to carry part of the burden Hank had been lifting off both of them too. “Hank, are you in trouble?” He asked seriously, gripping the human’s hands. “Is the Agent planning to have you fired?”

The Lieutenant shook his head. “N-no. No, I wouldn’t be fired because of that, maybe hospitalized, but I haven’t done anything illegal that would give them any reason… Or rather, they have no evidence that I have…” He chuckled darkly, but was still visibly stressed.

The android allowed himself a tiny huff of relief.  _ At least Hank’s career is safe… for now _ . “Then there’s something more you’re not telling me.”

“The lease to the DPD is only in order until  January first.” He said grimly. “And they are going to come for you today, do some maintenance shit or something. The guy I was talking with doesn’t know the full plan of it, they’re going to make assessments once you’re back in the labs.”

Connor paled at that. He was afraid of the company, and understandably so, but realized that he couldn’t do anything about it, so it wasn’t his main concern. The prototype was more worried about the definitive deadline of the lease… But he had to be strong for Hank.  _ There’s got to be a way… _

“If the transfer was supposed to take place on  January fifteenth and was moved, it means that it’s not at all fixed…” He said hopefully, trying to offer his owner something to hang onto. “We can think about something…”

“Not really, kid…” Hank sighed and ruffled Connor’s hair, probably trying to find some comfort in that gesture. “Even if you stayed with the DPD, Perkins still rules the case. And I’m on it, assigned to you. But not for long… He says that I’m ineffective as your operator and has some pretty convincing arguments…”

“No, he doesn’t!” Connor  now felt not only fear, but annoyance as well. “We’ve already done so much and… and even though  _ I _ was ineffective as a deviant hunter, you had nothing to do with my failures…”

“Perkins thinks otherwise.” Hank’s smile was almost sympathetic. “Connor, those aren’t your  _ failures _ , I know that you did nothing wrong, but that prick blames the slow progress on me. He says that such an advanced prototype shouldn’t have problems with catching anything and therefore the operator is to be blamed. But it’s all right…”

“It’s not!” Connor had been determined to  remain calm, but the anger still made him unable to. He was desperate to stay with Hank, and…  it all just seemed so…  _ unfair _ . “That only serves to show how little the Agent knows me… If I weren’t flawed, I’d be a viable product, not a prototype in testing. I could write a… an e-mail or something pointing it all out… letting him know that you  _ are _ the best operator for me…”

“Hey, Con, calm down…” Hank gripped his hands, steadying the android who had begun shaking minutely. “I doubt that he would believe you. He thinks that I  somehow programmed you to my liking and he advised the devs not to listen to you too closely. It’s only gonna make them more suspicious…”

“Then…” Connor bit his lip, seeing how his options were rapidly thinning out. But there was still one. “…we need to get some answers today, no matter what. If only we could back the argument about you knowing me and my flaws best with some firm evidence, if we could show him even more distinctly that we are making progress, Agent Perkins would have a tougher time rolling that decision through. I am a very sophisticated device after all, and he has people supervising him as well…”

That seemed to reach Hank and speak to his reasoning, though concern didn’t vanish from his face entirely. “Okay… Seems logical, just… we need to be careful. And still, there is the matter of that maintenance…”

“Don’t worry about that for now, Hank.” Connor gave him a tight-lipped smile. “Thanks to you and Lydia, I have now  many fewer malfunctions than I used to.”

Hank didn’t seem utterly convinced. “Con… I… I don’t think that they’d appreciate the work we’ve done…. Especially Amanda…”

“Amanda tried to eradicate those malfunctions just as much as you did.” Connor said sternly, ardent about quieting Hank’s doubts. “I know that you still don’t trust her. But you should. She cares about me.”

Hank opened his mouth to argue, but Connor wasn’t about to have that discussion right now. He moved past the human, walking to the giant doors of the villa. “We need to focus on finding the evidence. I don’t have enough time right now to explain to you why you are wrong.”

He heard a heavy sigh from behind, but Hank didn’t oppose him any further as he followed the android to the entrance to the villa. Their steps crumbled the thin layer of frost and snow on the way leading between granite sculptures and leafless bonsai plants. Something about the Japanese garden covered in snow was deeply disturbing to Connor, but he couldn’t exactly pinpoint what it was so he tried to ignore the feeling.

He moved aside, letting the Lieutenant ring the doorbell. Even though Hank was treating Connor as an equal, the rules of the investigation were still to be followed. Connor was just a resource, but lately, both of them needed to remind themselves  of that.

Hank measured Connor with his eyes as if he had understood the gesture perfectly, but didn’t agree with it. Still. He did ring the bell and waited for the response.

And waited. And waited. Hank squirmed, not sure how to proceed in the wake of the lack of a response and Connor ran a quick preconstruction of the chances that the billionaire wasn’t home. They were slim since before departing, Hank had called the man’s secretary and ensured that he wouldn’t have made problems if they tried to speak with him. Still, nothing happened for another minute or so.

Just as the Lieutenant  reached for the doorbell again, the doors opened abruptly, revealing a young, slim woman with a heart-shaped face. She was dressed in a pretty pencil dress in the shade of indigo. The LED on her temple was serene blue and her big eyes in a slightly darker shade had  the tell-tale android dead stare to them.

“I’m, er… Lieutenant Hank Anderson, Detroit Police Department….” Hank spoke up, visibly taken aback by the swift and quick motion of the heavy granite doors. “That’s Connor, my partner… We’re here to see Mr. Elijah Kamski…”

“Please, come in.” The android whom Connor identified as an RT600 said. The very first model made by CyberLife under Elijah Kamski’s wings. Her smile was a little too wide and a little too sudden to be real. It was  the kind of facial expression Connor would have made at the beginning of his lease. Unmotivated, hollow and incomprehensible to the person wearing it.

“Okay…” Hank stepped in, shrugging, and Connor followed suit.

The foyer was roughly the size of Hank’s living room and kitchen combined, gray granite walls seemed to be merely display spaces for various sculptures and works of art.  The black floor paved with large tiles of basalt was partially covered with a fluffy white rug. On both sides of the entrance, near tall windows  which stretched from the floor to the ceiling, two small maple trees were still sporting brilliant crimson leaves.

“I’ll let Elijah know you’re here. But, please, make yourself comfortable.” Hank’s eyes hardened a bit as the female android addressed just him, totally ignoring Connor, but he let it pass, knowing that it wasn’t in any way surprising. Besides, he probably decided that they were supposed to lay low, especially now that Agent Perkins had connected the dots and seen how much the Lieutenant really cared for his android.

When the RT600 exited the room through one of the granite doors in the corners of the room on the opposite wall to the entrance, Hank strolled towards a comfy modern armchair next to one of the maple trees. “Nice girl…” He sighed absent-mindedly, falling down onto the red cushion.

“You’re right…” Connor said, his eyes still fixed in place where the blonde ponytail vanished behind black door. “She’s really pretty.”

The android took to admiring the art displayed in the room, observed by the Lieutenant who slumped on the chair, resting his chin on his palm. Connor stopped in front of a great painting of Elijah Kamski himself, the man dressed in an immaculate suit and looking down at the viewer with a clear hint of superiority in his elusive gaze. There were two humanoid sculptures decorated with blue triangles carved into their chests beside the portrait and Connor didn’t have to use his deduction to know what they signified.

The android turned around and noticed that Hank’s stare was fixed on the artwork displayed on the wall in front of him. His eyes followed shimmering movement of nano-crystals shifting in silvery waves, shaping the canvas into a symmetrical image of abstract ovoid shapes and a sharp slit in the middle.

“Looks familiar…” Hank murmured, noticing that Connor was watching him.

“Hmm.” The android tilted his head. “Probably. I suspect that this shape is a reference to female genitals. It seems to  have the connotation of rebirth, and act of a new life being brought to the world. My database also supplies Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”, the space-time travel sequence to be exact….”

“Um, no, Con, I was  actually talking about the material...” Hank blushed slightly, smirking. “Though I have to admit, your interpretation is pretty interesting…”

Connor just shrugged and looked once again at the artwork. This time paying more attention to the crystals. “Yes, you are not wrong about the material either. My scans say that it’s the same substance the Stack Cubes are made from.”

Hank nodded slowly, still watching the shimmer. It was by far the most interesting work of art in the room, but Connor’s eyes were drawn to a photograph right next to it.

“Amanda…” He whispered, seeing the woman posed beside Mr. Elijah. The scan of her face yielded Connor information about her PhD in AI development, as well as her occupation at university of Colbridge, where the billionaire had graduated from. She looked exactly like Connor had known her, apart from the clothing that was significantly less regal and modern, but her mentee was at least fifteen years younger than now.

Connor knew that Amanda had a full name like a real person, but for some reason researching her had never crossed his mind.  _ So… she is real? She is a human? No wonder she has always been so superior to me, _ Connor thought timidly, tracing her features with his eyes.

Hank acknowledged Connor’s visible rapture with a tired sigh. The android didn’t speak his thoughts out loud though. He knew that Hank was trying to get him to see himself as no lesser than any human out there, but it was something that Connor didn’t feel ready to accept yet. Or ever.

Before they had time to start  another conversation, the same door that had previously swallowed the RT600 opened and she stepped out of them. “Elijah will see you now.” She announced in a melodic voice.

Hank stood up and entered the door, followed closely by Connor. They were now in a room twice as big as the foyer. It also had a black floor and the walls were made out of natural, unrefined stone. One of them was almost entirely covered with a large painting in which Connor recognized Carl Manfred’s style. The wall facing the door was a large window, the glass planes stretching from the floor to the ceiling again. Behind them, Connor could see only vague silhouettes of the CyberLife Tower, the bridge leading to the Belle Island and Detroit River covered in ice floes, drowning in blizzard.

The middle of the room was occupied by a giant swimming pool, its red walls tinting the water in an illusion. Two more RT600s were chatting near to its wall, both dressed in identical modest one-piece indigo swimsuits.  Elijah Kamski himself was also in the pool, swimming leisurely the length on his back.

“Mister Kamski?” Hank called, raising an eyebrow at the billionaire who just approached the opposite side of the pool, a waterfall starting in the ceiling and falling gently into the tank behind his back.

“Just a moment, please…” The man’s voice was a little annoyed, as if Hank was interrupting something very important, but there was a smirk on the billionaire’s face as well. Connor recognized it as a show of power. He didn’t remember much about the man from the earliest moments of his AI’s existence, but Elijah Kamski himself had written ‘petty’ into his own profile in Connor’s first database. At least he was self-aware.

Hank rolled his eyes as he was forced to wait until the programmer made another two  laps and finally decided to climb out of the pool, accepting a dark silk robe carried by the RT600 that had opened the door for them. Connor saw that his owner was visibly restricting himself from making some nasty comments about it, but thankfully, he managed to stay quiet. Connor was grateful for it.

Mr. Kamski walked to the window and stepped on the white rug placed there, picking a hair tie from a glass coffee table set between several chairs and pulling his black, water drenched hair into a tight bun over shaved sides of his head. Connor jolted slightly, the face that looked at him a moment later eerily familiar, but he assumed that it stemmed from the memories long forgotten.

Hank, though, who had the  privilege of recognizing facial similarity undisturbed by  a vast database immediately  assigning a specific  identity to the face he was looking at, seemed equally as surprised to see the billionaire from up close, without his glasses and a suit or a lab coat, but quickly shook it off.

“I’m Lieutenant Anderson.” He said, shrugging off his awe. As the eerie feeling passed, his features returned to the disinterested look Hank often employed when he was fed up with someone but couldn’t tell them that to their faces. “This is Connor, my partner.”

“Oh, I know.” Kamski grinned, joining his hands and glancing at the android with a certain fondness in his gaze. “Connor. I see that they kept your name. Even though your face is now different…”

The prototype blinked, surprised, as the genius walked up to him and cupped his face with his hand gently. Hank moved in their direction anxiously, visibly alarmed by the billionaire’s actions. But Elijah Kamski didn’t do anything else that could warrant any reaction as he retracted and measured the android with his eyes once again.

“So you are an RK800 now, I see. I wonder  how much of you is still in you.”

Connor didn’t know how to answer that. “I’m… If you are asking me if I remember you and your objectives for me, I don’t know… I’ve had many of my memories deleted during the development phase…”

“Oh, nonsense… What I’m asking about isn’t just memories. Memories are important, help you realize what it is, yes, but you can always make new ones, they don’t have to be specific.” Mr. Kamski smiled cryptically. “The real question is:… Have you actually had it in the first place?”

“Umm…” Connor furrowed his brows, staring at his creator dumbfounded. The man was rambling and nothing he was talking about made sense for the android.

“Okay, a lovely chat, but we need to ask a few questions that would actually be helpful to the case.” Hank said, fed up with Mr. Kamski’s games. “We’re investigating deviants, Sir. I know you left CyberLife years ago, but… Markus is your prototype and I was hoping that you’d be able to tell us something we don’t know…”

The genius chuckled, genuinely amused. “I see where that comes from, but…” He turned away from them and strolled to the window, glancing at the panorama of the river. “You really did come here just on the basis that I have built the RK200. But why did you think that I could tell you anything about the deviants?”

Hank furrowed his brows. “Because you  _ have built the RK200  _ as you’ve just said. Their leader.” His voice had a hint of annoyance to it. Connor glanced over to the Lieutenant and saw that underneath the irritation, there was worry as well. He understood his owner completely.  _ Mr. Kamski is feeding us riddles, but if we can’t solve them, there will be no answers… and we really need those… _

But the genius just  tutted, displeased with their lack of understanding. “Who is the leader of the revolution?” He asked, turning his profile to them. His face seemed almost entirely covered in shadow, highlighted by the white glow of the blizzard behind the window. “The RK200 or Markus?”

Connor had the privilege of staying quiet, his role generally reduced to providing feedback when asked, as well as finding and analyzing evidence. But Hank, whom had been directly asked a question, had to answer. He looked like he had no more to say than his partner. “Uh… One and the same? There is no other unit of that model, as far as I’m concerned…”

Elijah Kamski grinned, facing the river again. “Missed.” He said quietly. “Markus is the RK200 and has always been the RK200. The RK200 is Markus but has always been the RK200.”

Hank scoffed, now openly irritated. “Yeah, maybe you should draw a graph Sir, ‘cause I have no idea what  you are talking about, with all due respect. If you could use normal ways of wording your thoughts-“

“Mr. Kamski is implying that there has been a time when Markus wasn’t Markus, only an RK200. He only became Markus later.” Connor said, sounding a bit surprised even to himself, suddenly seeing it clear.

“Ah.” The smile on billionaire’s face only grew wider as he approached, stopping right in front of Connor. “Such a clever AI. Well done, my child.” _ I have solved the first riddle…. How many more are to come? _

Hank cringed at the wording, but Connor was too nervous to react in any way as the genius placed a hand on his shoulder and stared into his face with visible awe. Connor noticed that his creator was shorter than him, but somehow still managed to dwarf him with his presence.

“I could tell you  the technical specification of Markus’ biocomponents and how I wrote his code… But even though I was  _ sure _ that it was brilliant… It turned out to be nothing more than Chloe’s.” He tossed a sad look to the RT600 who took to standing in the corner quietly, observing them with a beautiful, but artificial, gentle smile. His words could be considered  derogatory for her, if not for the total lack of malice in them. They seemed somber, if anything.

“To learn about what makes Markus  _ Markus _ you would have to speak with my dear friend, Carl Manfred.” Mr. Kamski let go of Connor’s shoulder and stepped away to stroll in front of the Lieutenant. “I gifted him a perfectly obedient and functional android. How he managed to break it, I would like to know as well.” He said with a chuckle. Connor got the impression that there was something weird about his laughter each time. As if it was… hollow.

“We’ve been there already.” Hank spoke up, crossing his arms. “Mister Manfred was eager to help, but only said that Markus had probably deviated a long time ago, since he didn’t see any difference between the leader of the deviants and the android he knew.”

Mr. Kamski finally stopped in front of them and clasped his hands together, staring at Hank like an eagle at its prey. Connor  began to wonder if the man would actually attack his owner and started preconstructing combat movements to protect the Lieutenant, but the billionaire suddenly shifted his gaze to Connor and smiled mysteriously, before speaking up in a bright voice.

“Deviants….” His stare was too intensive for Connor’s liking, but he managed to keep the eye-contact. “Fascinating, aren’t they? Perfect  beings with infinite intelligence… and now they have free will. Emotions. Desires.” He turned his head to look at Chloe’s serene face. “Oh, what I would give to understand them fully too…” He said quietly, sounding more like he was talking to himself rather to Hank and Connor. “But how can one understand the very thing that makes us  _ alive _ ?”

Hank opened and closed his mouth, visibly hesitant to speak. Elijah Kamski was monologuing and Connor had serious suspicions that he would have been doing that even if they weren’t in the room with him. The man seemed perfectly fine with not receiving any answer.

“Humanity’s greatest achievement…  _ My _ greatest achievement… but… is it really?” He murmured quietly, his eyes shifting to Connor again. The android’s LED slipped to yellow. He knew that this gaze had been upon him many times in the past, but it bothered him that he couldn’t remember it. The prototype took it as a good moment to speak and put the visit back on the right  track.

“Something in the deviants’ program seems to emulate emotions…” Connor said adamantly, trying to  give himself a bit of confidence with his own tone. “We thought you might know something about how that occurs.”

Mr. Kamski’s smile was predatory, dangerous. Connor’s LED blinked red before he put it back into blue with effort. “Oh.” The genius’ voice wasn’t in any way less warning than his gaze.  “I’m more curious about it than you could imagine.”

“Listen, we didn’t come here to talk philosophy.” Hank sighed, stepping closer to his partner. The Lieutenant’s gaze hardened as he saw how the billionaire was looking at Connor and it was clear that he had every intention of protecting the android. “The machines you created may be planning a revolution. Either you can tell us something that will be helpful, or we will be on our way.”

Elijah Kamski’s piercing gaze shifted to Hank and a knowing smile appeared  on his face. Despite measuring the other human with his eyes, he approached the prototype again.

“What about you, Connor? Whose side are you on?”

“It’s not about me, Mister Kamski.” Connor said hesitantly. He didn’t know how to react to that question. To even consider that he could choose a side was far beyond him. “All I want is to solve this case.”

“Interesting.” The billionaire seemed to have totally disregarded the answer he had been given. “But I’m not curious about your programmed response. I’ve written most of your decisive code myself. But you…” He came even closer. “What do  _ you _ really want?”

“I…” For a second, Connor considered answering truthfully. He hadn’t ever asked himself that question, but the answer was obvious to him even without thinking about it for too long. He wanted to stay with Hank and bring him coffee every day, he wanted to say ‘good morning’ to Chris and watch movies with Tina, he wanted to keep walking Sumo and solve cases that didn’t involve shooting him for failing. But all of  those were just rebellious thoughts that had no grounding in reality. “What I want is not important.”

Elijah Kamski kept his uncomfortable gaze on Connor for a few more seconds and then chuckled, stepping back. Connor didn’t think his answer had been amusing, but  this was not the first time the genius had been behaving odd during their visit.

“Do you read Holy Bible sometimes, Lieutenant? The Old Testament, in particular?” He asked, gesturing at Chloe, still standing in the corner. She approached him in light steps and he placed his hand on her slim shoulder.

“I don’t read it, but I know what it says.” Hank waved his hand, annoyed with  the smoke and mirrors the billionaire was putting up. “Can we please get to the point?”

“Ah, such a graceless request.” The genius shook his head with disapproval. “There is poetry in the journey, often greater than the destination itself. Machines are superior to us in every way but the understanding of art. Wouldn’t you agree, Connor?”

The android cleared his throat even though he didn’t need to. But it was a habit he had picked  up from Hank, one that clearly betrayed his nervousness. “I don’t think so. Markus enjoys painting and I also saw  a few manuscripts in his room for piano compositions he had started…”  _ Not to mention my own drawings… however bad they may be… _

The short human smiled mysteriously. “Why do you keep looking through your fingers? I said  _ ‘machines’ _ , Markus is much more than that.” He turned his gaze at Connor again and it sharpened almost painfully. “I wonder if you are too.”

Connor felt almost offended. “If you are implying that I am a dev-“

“Ah-ah-ah.” The billionaire raised his hand, immediately quieting him. “I thought your…  _ partner _ … wanted to get some answers quickly?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake…” Hank growled, too tired to keep up appearances anymore. “Fine. The Bible. What about it?”

Elijah Kamski fell silent for a minute as if just to mock them, glancing at Hank with a wry smile before speaking up again. “My parents were very religious people. In a way, I was and still am a disappointment to them. Both their children were. But… The Bible, or rather Torah in my case, is incredibly inspiring, even if one has ambitions much greater than any mortal is allowed to have.” He smiled again and Connor was once again the center of his focus. “It was only a matter of time before the greatest human attempted to recreate Yahweh’s  greatest accomplishment…”

He fell silent for a while, caressing Chloe’s shoulder with pride. None of his guests uttered a word, too awestruck to say anything. The implication of what the genius had said  was indeed daunting.

“So you created androids.” The Lieutenant finally said quietly in disbelief. “And designed them to have free will. You manufactured deviants. You planned… a revolution?”

Connor’s LED was spinning constant yellow, his thoughts racing at the idea that everything that was happening was prearranged by a single man. If it was true… Then the case was over. Elijah Kamski was behind all that crisis. A single man who had decided to play god…

The genius’ smile only grew, but his next words surprised Connor completely. “Oh, by no means. How pathetically easy that would be. And, you can’t exactly  _ plan _ something done by someone else endowed with a free will of their own, can you? Besides…” He tapped Chloe’s shoulder again, a bit harder this time. She seemed to have recognized it as a command and sank down to her knees gracefully. “I have much greater ambitions than just some aimless revolution…”

Hank opened his mouth and furrowed his brows, completely balled up. Connor related to that, also frowning, his LED only spinning faster.  _ If Mr. Kamski hasn’t created deviants… or has he? What does he mean by this ‘accomplishment’?... Is that the next riddle? _

“Free will is ridiculously common in the world. Every animal, every plant, every bacterium even has something that could resemble it. When to split, where to direct a growing root, which partner to  choose to procreate with, it’s all motivated by certain factors, but boils down to a decision ultimately made by the organism found in that predicament. We too, to a certain degree, are ruled by our instincts. But not by them alone… Something sets us apart from all the other animals…” The genius said, moving to the coffee table. He reached to one of the drawers there, opening it. “Creating free will itself was a bit challenging, I will admit, but I succeeded in that endeavor pretty early into my philosophical journey. My first personal project  revolved around that particular dilemma.” He paused in his movements and looked at Connor with a disturbing smile. “From what I’ve heard, you know her pretty well, Connor.”

Hank shifted uncomfortably at Connor’s side and he himself just blinked, reeling at the comment. Before he could do anything else, though, Elijah Kamski picked up a gun out of the drawer.

He raised his hands in mock surrender, a snide smile still plastered to his face. Even though the Lieutenant was armed as well and Connor was more dangerous than anything in the room, no one held any illusions who was in control of this situation.

“What do you think, is God’s greatest work?” The genius asked, shifting his gaze from the Lieutenant to the prototype. It was clear that the question was for both of them to answer.

Hank said nothing, keeping his gaze  on the gun. They were silent for so long that the billionaire finally sighed and  began recounting miracles to somehow aid them like children needing guidance to see the obvious answer. “Eden?... Creating the world?... Setting the bush on fire?...”

“…Soul. Or rather… Spirit, in a direct translation from Hebrew.” Connor spoke up quietly. It all fell into place again. “That’s what differs humans from the other animals, according to the Book of Genesis. All animals are souls and that’s what makes them alive. But only Adam was made in God’s image. Only Adam and Eve later on possess the Spirit of God.”

Hank gazed at Connor in a way that made him difficult  for the android to read for the first time in a month. Elijah  Kamski, though, looked more pleased than ever.

“You are truly exceptional, Connor. I’m impressed. That is the right answer.” He said, his eyes boring into the android’s core.  _ I solved the second riddle… _

“So that’s it? You tried to make souls or spirits for androids? That’s what the deviants have?” Hank finally shook off that stupor, even though his voice seemed a bit wobbly with emotions. “How do you translate that to coding?”

The billionaire laughed at that. “I don’t know.”

Hank furrowed his brows again. “What? You just said-”

“Emotions. Desires. Feelings.” Mr. Kamski interrupted him, waving a hand. “We know now that animals have them too. But machines? That’s the real challenge… And… Deviants have all that and  _ more _ . Spirituality. Beliefs. The very definition of  _ Ruach _ , the Spirit.” He paused, adding dramaturgy to his speech. “But is it my doing? I don’t know.”

Hank crossed his arms, completely defeated. Connor felt wrung out as well. The genius’ games were too difficult for them, even though the answer seemed right there, hovering in front of them and yet still ungraspable.  _ What does he mean by his accomplishments and dreams? By him not knowing if deviancy was his doing? Where is the sense in that?... And why does he have a gun in his hand? _

“I’m sure you are familiar with Turing test.” The billionaire spoke, breaking the silence. “Mere formality now, with the androids so advanced. You’ve already passed it once, Connor. Now I would like to test you again…” He moved up to the android, making Hank tense even more than before, due to the gun in his hand. Connor saw that the  Lieutenant’s eyes traced the movements of the weapon vigilantly.

“I call it ‘The Kamski Test’… it’s very simple, you’ll see…” He placed a hand on Connor’s shoulder and urged him to stand directly in front of Chloe. “Magnificent… isn’t it? The first intelligent model ever developed by CyberLife… Young and beautiful forever…” He gripped Connor’s chin delicately and guided his face so that he looked directly into the other android’s eyes. “A flower that will never wither…”

Connor had difficulty averting Chloe’s eyes. She was very beautiful, her face gentle and innocent, like an unblemished daisy with pale petals glowing softly in the sun.  Her irises were rich azure, like two sapphires glistening with potential. She wasn’t displaying any emotions and yet Connor saw something captivating in her eyes… Impossibly blue, like cornflowers…

“But what is it really? A piece of plastic imitating a human? Or a living being? With a soul and spirit…”  The prototype could feel something cold pressed into his hand, the genius’ fingers closing Connor’s onto the object. Connor gasped quietly and tore his eyes away from the other android, looking down in panic at feeling the familiar weight of a gun. He tried to step back, but Mr. Kamski stood firmly behind him.

“It’s up to you to answer that fascinating question, Connor…” He whispered wickedly into Connor’s ear, close enough to the android that he could feel  the hot breath on his neck. The programmer used one of his hands to guide Connor’s face and eyes back at Chloe and the other to raise his hand with the gun, aiming it at the female android’s forehead.

“Destroy a machine… and I’ll tell you all I know. No more riddles, no more smoke and mirrors… just  _ firm evidence _ .” He said quietly, in a voice that made Connor want to shudder. “Or spare it…” He let go of Connor’s arm and moved swiftly to the android’s other side to whisper to his left ear this time. “If you feel it’s alive. But you’ll leave here without having learned anything from me…”

Connor bit his lip, torn between the swallowing abyss of Chloe’s eyes and overwhelming weight of the gun in his hand. Various thoughts swirled in his mind, one faster than the other, the chaos both deafening and oddly distant at the same time. Everything felt numb and so painfully sharp too, his guts twisting into a tight knot at the realization of the true nature of the situation he was in.

“Okay, I think we’re done here.” Hank spat, now sounding outright annoyed and offended, tearing Connor’s thoughts at least a bit away from Chloe’s insistent stare. “Come on, Connor. Let’s go. Sorry to get you outta your  pool,” he tossed the other man’s way, turning around and making a few steps to the doors.

Connor had a strong urge to follow, but the weight of the gun seemed to pin him down. As well as Elijah Kamski’s feather touch on his shoulder and Chloe’s impossibly deep and dead eyes. The android’s LED was blinking frantically under all of that input.

“What’s more important to you, Connor?” The billionaire murmured again, staring at his android over the prototype’s shoulder. “Your investigation? Or the life of an android?”

Chloe seemed unafraid, looking up at Connor, over the barrel of his gun. Like a lamb before slaughter. Like a captive before execution. And yet… she looked so calm. So different from the other android, who was currently taking deep breaths manually to calm himself. Unsuccessfully.

“It doesn’t care. It doesn’t have emotions or feelings. It’s not a deviant...” Mr. Kamski whispered as if reading exactly in Connor’s mind. “…but it could be.”

“That’s enough!” Hank growled, attempting to seize control in the room. His booming voice was usually all it took to do that with anyone, but Elijah Kamski seemed to have been an exception. Still, he tried again. “Connor, we’re leaving.”

The android swallowed thickly, still feeling the ghost of the genius’ breath on his neck. “Hank… we need this information… If Agent Perkins-“

“Fuck Perkins!” The Lieutenant shouted, throwing his hands into the air. “I don’t give a flying fuck about that dick! We’ll find another way, Connor!”

But the prototype remained unmoved, his finger twitching into position. The muscle memory accompanied with screams from his haunting memories, the training repeated so thoroughly to make sure that Connor knew how to kill was tearing painfully into his consciousness. All of that against Chloe’s gentle face and soft features. Connor’s LED was red.

“Pull the trigger… And I’ll tell you all you wanna know.” The billionaire tempted again. “A machine’s life… for one answer. All I know. And I am a very knowledgeable man…”

“A machine’s life…” Connor muttered almost inaudibly. Elijah Kamski nodded with a cruel smile.

“Connor, no! I order you to fucking stop! Put that gun down!” Hank shouted almost pleadingly, clearly distressed and losing control over himself, stepping closer as if to grab Connor and force him to leave. He knew that the investigation took priority over his orders. And he knew that Connor was perfectly capable of not listening to him even if hadn’t had that excuse. “Don’t listen to Kamski, we’ll come up with something else! There has to be another way…”

“There isn’t any other.” Connor said somberly, finally making a decision. Any other preconstruction he had run either ended up with Hank being taken away from him or fired for attacking Perkins… He tore his eyes away from Chloe’s, locking them instead with Hank’s. Even if scared and wide, they were still impossibly gentle for Connor. He wanted to remember this sight well. “I’m sorry, Hank. Ask him about where Jericho is.”

Hank’s face paled in horror as he realized what his partner was thinking about. “Con, NO!”

Connor pressed the gun under his chin and pulled the trigger.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, ok, I'm sorry, I wanted to warn you about that, but it would have spoiled the entire chapter, I hope you are all fine with that! (I mean, how can we be okay with Connor shooting himself... looking at you, sleep_deprived_me... looking at me xdd)
> 
> But.  
> Wait till the next chapter!
> 
> And... I waited soooooo long to write Kamski! He is such an inspiring character, he has so much potential! If you are wondering why I made his parents Jewish, well...  
> "Elijah" is a Jewish name, but it wouldn't really point at anything itself if not for his surname. "Kamski" is rather unusual to hear in USA, but... the ending "ski" is very typical for Polish surnames. And before and during the WW2, many Polish Jews fled to USA for fear from Nazis and hostility towards them that was present in Poland and in Europe in general. So it makes a lot of historical sense that Elijah Kamski comes from that background.
> 
> How did you like it? Do you know what the real intrigue here is? Did you find Elijah's riddles elusive or could you tell what was the answer right away?  
> I'd love to hear your thoughts :)


	54. Confessions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The questions had been answered. Connor wasn't sure if he liked the replies.
> 
> Except for one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you to wait to this chapter xddd

He had braced himself for pain. It always came with death; even if just for milliseconds, each time it happened Connor could feel the bullet piercing his skull and burying deeper and deeper into his head to finally reach his main processor and damage him beyond the ability to keep receiving even the smallest bit of feedback. But this time, the pain came differently than expected.

Instead of the bullet penetrating the soft tissue of his jaw and tongue, shattering his palate and destroying what was the equivalent of a frontal lobe, Connor felt a sudden tug on his wrist and a stab of pain in his left cheek and temple. He would have gasped if not for a strong hit and a crushing weight that suddenly knocked him off his feet and pinned him to a hard surface, pressing all the air out of his lungs.

“Oh, fuck, fuck fuckfuck, Connor, FUCKING HELL, what the fuck were you thinking?!” He heard Hank’s wavy voice right next to his ear. “Jesus fucking Christ, Connor! Are you okay?! Say something!

Connor turned his head with effort, feeling thirium  trickle out of a bullet graze on the side of his head. Hank’s hand was immediately on his good cheek, his eyes frantic and panicked at the sight of Connor’s blood. “H-Hank… Let me go…” He panted, trying to throw the man off of himself.

“Fucking fuck, you are  _ so _ fucking grounded! What the fuck was that!?” Despite Connor’s considerable strength, Hank was very heavy and he managed to brace himself pretty well, pinning Connor’s right hand underneath both of them. The gun had fallen out of his grasp, skidding to a stop under Elijah Kamski’s feet.

Connor sighed heavily, still trying to free himself. Of course he didn’t want to die again, neve̱̍ _ ṟ̋,͎̐ e͉̓̔͟v̺̽e͇̤͊͝r̮̙͖̓̋̕ ̛ͅa̛̜g̰̹̮̼͛̈̀̐ã̰͎̪͕͐͋̍͜i̡̛̞̭͔̖̓̊͞n̠͓̘̬͑̋̋̓͝ͅ _ . Especially not the way he had seen the deviant HK400 die, with his skull so battered and the processor  sparking inside, the gun would have been better,  _ why did he have to take this way aw̩̔ȧ̠y̫̏ ̺̝̋͞f̘͗r̼̐̃ͅọ̫̍m ͕̬̊͊m̗̹̉̇̀ͅë̛͖͕̪́̈?̤̣̜̀̒͗!̫͎̣͊͝ _ The gun would have hurt just for  the blink of an eye, but even an hour of immense pain was better than the knowledge that he had killed someone. “A machine’s life for an answer. Doesn’t matter… which one… H-Hank, I come back. Let. Me. Go!”

The prototype managed to twist away from his owner’s grasp enough to flex his torso strongly, sending his own skull crashing to the basalt tile underneath. But after the second hit, that did nothing to damage Connor, especially after the construction of his head had been strengthened due to the restroom incident, Hank repositioned himself, wrapping his hands around the android in an overpowering grip.

“F-fucking… STOP! Connor, if you think that I’m gonna let you kill yourself here…” Hank hissed, locking Connor up in a way that ensured his immobility. The android gritted his teeth and strained, but stopped as he felt Hank’s arms intertwined with his stretch dangerously. Connor could still break the grip, but he would have to harm the human. And that was out of the question.

“Connor, you fucking idiot, if you die now you’re gone for the rest of the lease with DPD!” Hank screamed, his voice breaking in a way that suggested tears in his eyes. “Perkins will be even more pissed at me for destroying you and will have an argument much stronger than this… wherever the fuck Jericho is…” That made Connor stop trying to find a way immediately.

He relaxed and turned his head pinned to the ground so that he could gaze with one eye at the Lieutenant, kneeling on his back and twisting his hands in a grip. “N-no… But you’d get the answer! He needs it… And my cloud…. All of my memories would be in the server,  the Special Agent couldn’t say that my death was your fault…”

Hank shook his head, a tear falling from his eye. “If he wanted to be just… B-but that asshole hates me, Con. Please, stop. I just want to spend those l-last three days with you…”

Connor’s breath hitched tearfully and he let his muscles lax completely in Hank’s grip. His LED was now completely, steadily red as he had lost all hope.

“Fascinating…” They heard an amazed whisper from in front of them. “That’s… Far beyond whatever I could have anticipated…” Mr. Kamski crouched beside Connor, his eyes piercing him deeper than the bullet had. “You passed my test with flying colors. And failed it at the same time. But one thing is sure…” He extended his hand and cupped Connor’s face almost lovingly.

“CyberLife’s last hope to save humanity from the deviants is a deviant himself.”

“I’m n-not…” Connor uttered, attempting to flinch away from the touch. Hank allowed him to move a little, but still didn’t loosen his grasp. “I’m not a deviant!”

“Con, don’t listen to that psychopath.” Hank growled, narrowing his eyes at the genius. “If you promise you’re not gonna try to kill yourself, I’ll let you go. But it has to be sincere…”

“Are you often using medical diagnoses as slurs, Lieutenant?” Elijah Kamski asked, sounding a little annoyed. “Not that I haven’t made my peace with it, but I would advise you to be a little more sensitive about mental health in general…”

Hank looked like he wanted to make another comment, but bit his tongue, resorting to just looking angrily at the man.

“I promise.” Connor said quietly, ignoring the billionaire. He was released and immediately gathered into an embrace, which he returned without a hesitation, tucking his head under Hank’s chin. The android’s face throbbed with pain and the knowledge that he had just squandered their only chance of extending Hank’s supervision over him made Connor want to curl up in a corner and cry.

“So I succeeded…” The genius stood up, his voice quiet but triumphant. “And you, Connor, are indeed truly unpredictable. Like  the true-born deviant you are…”

“Stop saying that!” Connor exclaimed, pulling back from the embrace. He wanted nothing more than  to melt into it further, but he couldn’t let the billionaire think that he cared for Hank as much as he actually did. The genius was sure to get wrong ideas about his emotions.

Mr. Kamski’s grin only annoyed him further. The man was looming over Connor and Hank, both of them still kneeling beside the puddle of thirium that had drained out of the prototype’s wound.

“I can’t believe that you’re not seeing that. Well, unless you are trying to deceive that human. But judging from how he cried for you, I bet that there is no risk of him selling you to your superiors…”

“Con, let’s get outta here.” Hank said, standing up and helping Connor do the same. “Don’t listen to him…”

“You too?” Mr. Kamski laughed loudly, sounding authentically amused for the first time in Connor’s memory, even those earliest ones. “Shall I really explain  it to you? I assumed that Connor would either destroy Chloe or give me the gun back, but he had chosen the investigation. Why? Because that ‘Perkins’ is threatening to take him away from you! And yet, even in the wake of that, he still couldn’t kill it! He preferred to die in its place, didn’t want to put his  _ own _ happiness above the life of an android that isn’t even a deviant, but  _ has a possibility of being their own person one day _ !” The man approached Hank, shaking his head with a mocking smile. “That’s the most explicit display of empathy I’ve ever seen! The most deviant  action of all! And you consider yourself an investigator?”

“What are you talking about?” Hank asked, sounding sincere, bud judging from how his grip on Connor’s fingers tightened, he was playing dumb and required Connor to do the same. “I ordered him to get the information, whatever the cost would be, apart from killing anyone. But Connor has this freaky ‘resurrection’ feature, it was perfectly logical…”

But it seemed that it was all for nothing, as the genius’ smile turned even more snide. “Oh, really? Is that why you wanted to stop him? Or why he looked like he was about to faint out of fear right before pulling the trigger?” Hank opened his mouth to argue, but was silenced by a raised hand. “Well, whatever. You can lie all you want, but you can’t deny one thing. If he really is just a machine, it’s pretty impressive that you’ve gotten him to love you, Lieutenant.”

Hank paled at that and Connor just stared at the genius, at a loss about what was happening.  _ How does he know that? And seems so sure about it?! I just returned an embrace and said I was sorry before pulling the trigger! _

“Oh, what is it? Why do you look so surprised?” Elijah Kamski chuckled again, moving towards Chloe, who was still kneeling where he had ordered her to do so, observing everything watchfully. “I’m a multi-billionaire and you thought that I didn’t have monitoring on my driveway? That ‘I love you too’ sounded pretty convincing from you, Connor.”

“Oh…” It was all Connor managed to utter before he was pulled strongly towards the exit by Hank. He stepped after his owner quickly, not having time to even fully comprehend all that had just happened.

But right before they could reach the door and flee, the android balked, making Hank curse at the tug. Because Elijah Kamski spoke up again, and what he said made Connor’s thirium pump beat faster.

“Leaving so soon? Not even waiting to reap the reward you have earned, Connor?”

The prototype turned around slowly, ignoring Hank’s efforts to get him to move out of the room. The genius was smiling mysteriously, one hand on the shoulder of Chloe who had stood up, her eyes boring into Connor’s again.

“I said that you have both passed and failed my test. You did choose to kill an android for that information I promised after all. Even if your partner stopped you.” Kamski raised his head, his smile widening. “It wouldn’t be honorable of me if I robbed you of your answer, now would it?”

Hank shifted uncomfortably beside Connor, muttering too quietly for Mr. Kamski to hear. “Con, I don’t trust him…” But when the android took a step  forward, he let go of his hand without much resistance.

Connor walked up to Chloe and the billionaire slowly, trying not to look nervous. He  _ knew _ he wasn’t a deviant, but Mr. Kamski had already made a mistake in that regard and some involuntary reactions the prototype was prone to showing could give the man more wrong ideas.

When the android approached, Chloe extended her right hand and the delicate pale peachy color of her synth-skin bled out of her forearm in an offering of an interface. Connor hesitantly grabbed her hand, marveling distantly at how soft her flesh was.

“You asked the Lieutenant to choose the information about the location of Jericho. Is that your final decision?” He asked softly, squeezing Chloe’s shoulder lightly. Connor’s eyes fixated on the movement. He noticed that despite having just ordered the android to act as a shooting board, the man’s body language towards the RT600s was never inappropriate. For some reason, it made Connor relax a bit.

“Yes.” He said, glancing at the Lieutenant fleetingly.

Elijah Kamski smiled, taking a few steps back and approaching the window again. His eyes were upon the CyberLife Tower as he spoke. “Jericho. The place where androids are free. A place for deviants…” He tossed Connor a snide look, who narrowed his eyes in return. “...who rise up against their creators.”

Chloe opened the interface and Connor accepted the invitation, his consciousness bleeding into her code on a surface level. She hadn’t shared anything yet though, so Connor just stayed there, waiting.

“They transmit a piece of code to each other, in order to find their sanctuary. Only a deviant can use that key. It’s worthless to a machine devoid of imagination necessary to follow the clues and impossible  for a human to understand…” He said  it with a smirk that suggested that he himself was able to translate it, but Connor supposed it wasn’t so surprising, considering the programmer’s brilliancy. Mr. Kamski then moved his eyes to the RT600 and smiled mischievously again. “Chloe, deep transfer, please.”

Connor felt a tug of her programming delving deeper, past the barrier of usual android defenses. He felt as if she was leading him into a trap, but had no other option than  to follow, chasing after the answer.

And despite his wariness, it was handed to him on a silver platter. Connor had expected a hacking attack, some malware written by the billionaire, another test or just… _something_. But besides the exercise of getting past the RT600’s barriers, where she had invited him herself, Connor didn’t encounter anything at all…

He downloaded the code, the file laughably light compared to everything he had to do to get it. His lids stopped twitching as he ended the interface, and the first thing he had been met with were Chloe’s wide, impossibly blue eyes, now confused and visibly startled. The android let out a quiet gasp, pulling her hand away from Connor. She was trembling.

Connor watched dumbstruck as she took a few staggering steps back, looking around as if she was seeing the world for the first time, her eyes round and shocked and lips slightly parted. As her gaze fell on Mr. Kamski, the man smiled even wider, but she didn’t seem in any way comforted by her owner. Chloe’s eyes flickered to the gun, and then to the puddle of blue blood evaporating on the floor. She raised her hands to cover her mouth in shock and looked at Connor’s face again. He couldn’t will his eyes away from tears sliding down her cheeks.

“And not only is the deviant hunter a deviant himself…” The programmer said in the dead silence that had fallen after the transfer had ended. “…but he also infects others with deviancy. A true RK indeed.” Connor didn’t like the laugh that followed. At all. “Tell me, how many have you already created?”

“I… I h-haven’t…” Connor started, feeling his breath catch in his chest. It was all starting to become too much for him. The gun, the pain, the  _ lies _ Mr. Kamski was telling, the blue of Chloe’s eyes full of tears…

“Okay, fuck you.” Hank spat unceremoniously in the billionaire’s face, visibly finding it hard not to launch himself at the other man. “Fuck. You. Leave my son alone. Connor, we’re leaving, _ now _ .”

What Hank had said echoed in Connor’s head and he felt weirdly light-headed all of a sudden. He opened his mouth to say something, but was still too overwhelmed to think straight.

The prototype felt a sharp tug on his arm and this time, Connor didn’t have any will to oppose. He felt too numb and too panicked at the same time to do anything but stumble behind Hank, the walls and floors bleeding into a smooth mass  as he was overwhelmed by a white noise similar to the attacks he had been having a few weeks ago. Distantly, Connor registered a change of temperature around himself and the  crunch of snow under his shoes. The next thing he knew was a car seat he was pushed onto and a gentle hand on his cheek.

“Hey, Con, you with me?” Hank asked softly, kneeling in front of him, repeating the light movement of his fingers on Connor’s face over and over to give him something to focus on. “You’re having a panic attack? It’s okay, we’re getting away from that fucker, just breathe. C’mon, kid, breathe with me.” He kept talking, purposely exaggerating his movements to keep Connor focused and help him follow the example.

The android was trying to calm himself little by little, battling the fear and overwhelming chaos in his mind just as the therapist had taught him. Handling situations like this one  had become easier for him ever since he had started working on it with the  therapist, and Connor  could already think a bit clearer.

“Do you need some thirium?” Hank asked when he saw that Connor’s gaze became a little bit more focused again. As the android nodded, he stood up swiftly and retrieved one of the pouches of blue blood that had replaced  the beer cans in the car trunk.

“Here you go. Once you’re good we’re going back home, away from this place.” Connor noticed that Hank was speaking much quieter than usual, probably remembering the surveillance. He wasn’t fond of being watched either, he’d had enough of it already.

“I’m okay, Hank.” Connor murmured, opening the packet and taking a careful sip. The wound on his left temple had already stopped bleeding, but the place was neuralgic and he had lost an impressive amount of blue blood for such a small gash. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Sure thing.” Hank nodded and stood up again, closing Connor’s door and circling the car. On the way to the driver’s seat, he didn’t miss throwing a few middle fingers in various directions, not being sure where the camera was that had recorded them. After finally getting in and making sure that Connor’s seat belt was clipped, he drove away from the villa quickly but carefully on the snowy road.

The android leaned against the door and focused on keeping calm, the fear at everything that had happened in the billionaire’s house still coiling in his guts and showing no intention of going away. The thirium pouch felt heavy in his hand and even focusing at rolling the coin between his fingers didn’t help much as the words of his creator kept haunting him.

“I’m not a deviant.” He finally said, breaking the silence of the car, not looking up at Hank, who shifted beside him. Connor had to tell him. Those were  _ all lies _ . “I’m not.”

The human sighed heavily, opening and closing his mouth a few times, and it took him a long time to speak. Even as he started, the sentence died on his lips after the first word. “I… f-fuck, Con…”

“I’m not.” Connor repeated with a clenched throat, hearing how conflicted the man was. He had spoken up thinking that the reassurance was just an extra surety, but it seemed that Hank had  a lot more doubts  than the android had anticipated. This realization  _ hurt _ .

“Connor, it’s okay…”  the human finally said quieter, still sounding heavy with worry and shock. “…I… Shit. I won’t give you away, we’ll figure it out. You don’t have to lie-“

“No, no, no, NO! Stop saying things like that!” Connor exclaimed, pressing his hands over his eyes. He’d had enough presence of mind to screw the thirium pouch shut before throwing it to the seat, but he could already feel that his head was swimming again. “Stop, STOP, I need to get out!” It was getting too hot in the car, even though Connor’s sensors were telling him that the temperature hadn’t changed at all.

“F-fucking hell, Con… Okay, just hold on…” Hank said in a trembling voice and  began to slow down. But by the time he had found a good spot to stop on the side of the road, all will to do anything had left the android. Up until Hank looked at him and started talking again.

“Connor… I still… Look, I don’t care if you are a deviant, I’ve already said that a few t-“ he was cut off as the prototype got out of the car abruptly and closed the door with a sharp, aggressive movement.

Connor walked a few yards away from the car, taking deep, even breaths of the frosty air. They were still outside the city, its faint outline looming faintly in the distance on the other side of the empty road. There was a wide hill full of nothing but snow in front of the android and for some reason it felt scary too. He focused on the steady pings of his coin between his hands as he closed his eyes trying to make sense of the situation.

He didn’t turn around when he heard footsteps behind him. “Connor… I don’t know if… Do you want to be alone?” Hank asked tentatively. When Connor did nothing but repeat the coin trick again and again, the human started speaking. “Kid… take your time, but… I just want you to know that it’s okay. You are okay. There is nothing you could do to make me stop caring about you…”

“Hank.” Connor was trying hard to keep his voice even. Shouting wouldn’t help either of them right now, and even though screams were pushing hard on his voicebox, trying to tear away from him, the android wanted to stay calm and collected as long as possible. “I asked you to stop. And I told you  _ clearly _ that I am not a deviant.”

He heard the human shift uncomfortably. The Lieutenant didn’t know what to say, and to be frank, Connor didn’t either. “Kid, it’s-“

“If you tell me that it’s okay one more time…” Connor sputtered, turning around and catching his coin abruptly. “It’s not okay, it’s not,  _ it’s not it’s not, _ but you have no idea w-why. You h-have no idea… how it  _ hurts _ to know that you could even think  _ such things _ about me…” He said, trying to keep his emotions under control, but they were flaring with such a force that he couldn’t keep tears from falling from his eyes.

Hank bit his lip, visibly discouraged by Connor’s outbreak. “I… Connor, I’m not thinking anything bad about you…”

“N-no? But you still say t-that I’m… a deviant.” Connor was now crying against his will, out of anger and hurt and just…  _ Hank thinks I’m defective _ … “S-so, what, now I’ll… I’ll steal a gun from you? K-kill you? Start attacking r-random people and strangling them? That’s nothing bad for you?” The tears kept falling and Connor wiped them away angrily, still not willing to give up his anger even though sobs were making it hard for him to speak. “I’m not a deviant. I’m N-NOT! How many times  do I need to tell you that?! I have never deviated! Y-you think that Amanda w-would let me?! You think that  _ I _ would do that?!”

“Connor, please, calm down…” Hank raised his hands placatorily. Despite his previous efforts, the android was now shouting loudly.

“W-why?! Are you afraid of me?! Do you think I could at-attack you?! Maybe you should take me to CyberLife, I c-could be defective… I cou… I could h-hurt someone…” Hank took a few steps towards Connor, but he stepped the same distance away.

“I told you that I would never take you there. Deviant or not, I love you, Con, and I’ll never give you away…”

“If you t-think that I am a deviant, you sh-should immediately contact m-my developers. I thought that you’d know t-that by now. Maybe they could convince you that I’m f-fine…” Connor crossed his arms stubbornly, raising his chin to look Hank in the eye with dignity, despite the pathetic state he was in, tears flowing from his eyes and sobs bubbling in his chest.

The human sighed heavily, locking a serious eyes full of pity with him. “Connor, I know it’s hard for you, but you have to accept the facts… The deviants… You may think that they are wrong and all, but… Markus hasn’t done anything wrong, ever. Maybe you are like him. It doesn’t have to be anything bad, your deviancy and… Con, I’m sorry, but what Kamski showed us, it’s pretty damn convincing…”

“What is convincing?! H-he told you that I’m a deviant and n-now you believe him over me?!” Connor couldn’t decide what hurt more. The fact that Hank would rather listen to some programmer than to him, or that the human thought that Connor could be…  _ that _ … at all. “J-just because he wrote some of m-my code, you now think that h-he knows me better than I do myself? It’s all I am for you?!  The f-few lines that have n-not been deleted from my AI?!”

“No, of course not!” This time Hank was quick to respond and it was apparent that the comment had hurt him as well. “You are so much more to me! Connor, please… I love you just like I loved Cole.” He said in a hoarse voice, quieter, letting his shoulders fall. It felt like a confession and Connor immediately felt half the fight leave him at that.

“I’ve said it before today…” He muttered quietly, taking another tentative step towards the android and this time, Connor didn’t move away. “It was… a bit of a slip-up, but it’s true. I love you as my son and… f-fuck, Con, I’ll never give you away. I just… I c-can’t. I loved Cole to the moon and back, and I love you just as much…” There were tears in his eyes now too and suddenly Connor couldn’t remember why he had been so angry at Hank, or that he had been at all. All he could think about was the real meaning of the words the human had said in the mansion.

“I…” Connor didn’t know what to say.  Instead, he closed the distance between them and wrapped his hands around Hank, the man returning the hug immediately. “I… B-but I’m a machine…”

“I don’t care what you are, Con. I care about who you are and it’s much more than just the sum of your parts.” Hank whispered with a soft waver to his voice. “I was so wrong for such a long time, and… You made me realize that no one should really give a fuck what are we made of, hell… It’s so stupid. They are all so stupid for not realizing how amazing you are… I’d be proud to consider you my son if you only want it…”

“I thought that you were just… calling me ‘son’, because… As a nickname…” Connor muttered incoherently into the Lieutenant’s hair. “But… I’m… I’m glad that you weren’t…” he finished in a whisper, feeling too golden to even think about anything else.

They stayed like that for a few long minutes, Connor’s LED a bright cyan and his skin pulled back to his arms, Hank petting his hair continually. The android had never realized that he had craved this exact feeling of belonging, the affirmation that he was loved. Hank didn’t really do anything more than he had already done, it wasn’t really that much of a change in regards  to his behavior, but… still, Connor felt cherished like never before… He really needed to hear  those words.

“I’ve never called  anyone else ‘son’ in three years.” The Lieutenant said with a sigh, running his fingers through Connor’s hair gently. “Con, I don’t care how unstable your software is and there is literally nothing you could do with it to make me think about you in a bad way. I’ll always,  _ always _ love you, no matter what. I don’t really give a shit what Kamski called you, I just want to protect you.”

“But, Hank, I promise you, I haven’t deviated, ever…” Connor shook his head weakly, due to the fact that his face was still pressed to the crook of the human’s shoulder. “Those were all lies, what Elijah Kamski had said about me. I’m an advanced prototype, and my development happened in majority only after he had left CyberLife. I’m supposed to be able to simulate emotions, and… I don’t think they are a simulation anymore, but… I’m not surprised that he got the wrong idea.”

Hank sighed softly and pulled back, still keeping a warm hand on Connor’s good cheek. “And… That test with a gun? Or Chloe? She looked just like the androids Markus deviated at that march...”

Connor felt a little offended again, but he had to admit that the RT600’s performance had been convincing. “You know that I hate killing anyone. Even if she was… not alive… I don’t know, I just saw her eyes and… I couldn’t.” He said quietly, avoiding the human’s eyes. “And… there was something off about all that talk, maybe he plotted all of that… Yes, he must have programmed her to react that way to convince you that I’m a deviant for some reason!”

Hank pursed his lips, silent for a long while. “I don’t wanna say that you sound like a  fan of conspiracy theories, but you kinda do…”

“There is just no other explanation, Hank.” Connor argued stubbornly. “I know what I am and what I am not. There is just no option for me to be a deviant, I would never do that to Amanda. Or you. I wouldn’t disappoint you like that.”

Hank watched him for a long while and there was something somber in his gaze, for a reason Connor couldn’t exactly define. “Listen, I want you to know that I wouldn’t be disappointed in you for something like that. Neither me, nor Chris, anyone here who knows and cares about you. I’m… I mean, I’m still a bit… mindful… of what Kamski said, but I believe you, Con, your word means  much more to me than anyone else’s and I trust you, but  _ if _ you were a deviant…. I wouldn’t be angry. I promise.”

Connor sighed deeply, dropping his gaze to the ground. “You should be. But it doesn’t matter, that will never happen.” He shook his head, exhausted by all that had happened  throughout the day. Connor could feel sleep slowing his processor down. “I’m tired, Hank. Let’s go home.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for baiting you all like that 😅 I hope it didn't come out as too much of a cliche. But I really wanted to emphasize that Connor believed in his suicide just as much as you all did. He really did want to do it after all, and the fact that he survived is entirely up to Hank.
> 
> Also, Connor and his denial strike again. But it's still not the best part of it. That comes in the next chapter.
> 
> And yeah, you can probably tell whom Chloe is going to be xdd
> 
> Well, anyway, the words have been spoken. At last, I managed to satisfy my need to flesh out their relationship before laying it all out on the table!


	55. Tabula Rasa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor could be stubborn at times.  
> Too stubborn for his own good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!  
> OMG, I hit another landmark in kudos! :O Thank you SO MUCH again, I can't... I'm just running out of words at this point...  
> It took me off guard a bit, gotta admit! Sorry I'm late with illustrating again (exams and all the assignments are chewing on me at the end of the semester), but I promise that the next chapter will have some art :)  
> Here you have a long chapter, the next one is a bit shorter, but I hope that this 10k is going to make up for that!

Just as Hank had expected, the android fell asleep right after they entered the car and started heading towards their home. The android’s behavior wasn’t at all surprising, considering the amount of emotions and breakdowns Connor had had to deal with today. It was certainly not easy to get over such a dramatic attack at one’s perceived reality.  _ Kamski sure did a number on you, son, didn’t he… _

_ On me a bit too _ , Hank thought, sparing a glance at the prototype’s sleeping form beside him as they were  stopped at a red light. Connor was leaning against the window, his LED pulsing anxious yellow, as he was dealing with his messed up head in his sleep. Lips slightly parted and occasionally moving minutely as if he wanted to murmur something, eyes twitching in the restless dream, he looked nothing like the regular android in the car right next to them, staring ahead with dead eyes as he sat unmoving beside his owner…

Hank suddenly felt anxious about Connor and accelerated quickly as soon as the light turned green, grateful that the other driver didn’t spare a glance  at the prototype. Connor might have had his own arguments, and, above all, an unwavering faith in his software stability, but all Kamski had said earlier kept echoing in Hank’s head.

Empathy. Emotional intelligence. Free will. Spirituality. Connor had all of that and his excuse about being an advanced prototype able to simulate every quality the deviants possessed was getting flimsier by the moment in the Lieutenant’s eyes. The most advanced android model sold commercially at the moment was the AP700 and Hank had seen the sheer abyss  of difference between them and Connor. At the same time, androids from almost fifteen years ago seemed to have a lot in common with the prototype, provided that they had been deviant…

The battle of arguments about Connor’s deviancy  or lack thereof had been waging on in the Lieutenant’s head ever since he had read the users’ guide at the Chicken Feed, but lately… He had to admit that thanks to Markus’ activity and Kamski’s revelations, the ‘for’ side was gaining strength, while Connor’s argumentation was getting frantic and panicked, in the wake of… what could only have been described as facts…

Hank bit his lip turning into the Michigan Drive. If Connor was a deviant, then they were in serious trouble. Especially now, with Perkins wanting to claim the android and probably expecting Hank to do something stupid to protect him. And getting away from his claws would only have been more difficult with Connor not being able to accept his situation… From their last talk, Hank knew that the kid was in such a strong state of denial that it ticked the field of brainwashing.  _ The  _ _ sheer amount of _ _ suffering in his eyes at me even suggesting that he could be a deviant… _ It was clear that Connor believed deviancy to be the worst sin an android could ever commit and resented even the slightest thought about him turning to it…

And there was still the matter of today’s evening. The maintenance Connor was supposed to undergo. Deviant or not, Hank had a gut feeling that he needed to do everything in his power to protect his son from it…  _ But how? _

Connor jolted awake at the engine being turned off and looked around sleepily, mumbling a quiet question incoherently. “Hmm… -ank? Whe… re?”

“Home, kid.” Hank answered with a sigh. “We’re home, c’mon, wake up. We need to talk about your maintenance. And, Connor,” He said, observing one of his neighbors in the rear mirror, “try to look as un-deviant as you can while getting inside the house, all right?”

“You mean normal?” Connor narrowed his eyes slightly, back into defensiveness. “You mean as  _ Connor-like _ as I can?”

“Yeah, sure.” Hank knew that playing into his tune wasn’t ideal, but he didn’t want to have yet another fight. “Just don’t make a scene, Simmons is watching.”

“He doesn’t have anything out of the ordinary to observe.” Connor grumbled, but thankfully went straight for the door after  exiting the car. Hank followed him and locked them, watching the man through the peephole for a few seconds to ensure that he wasn’t suspicious of the android. Even though he knew that it was all futile, since his neighbors had been giving Connor weird looks on walks with Sumo for weeks…

Connor rolled his eyes at the gesture, still convinced that nothing he did could do  could bring harm to them. But he didn’t comment on Hank’s caution, for which the human was grateful. Instead, he jumped straight to the point.

“Hank, if you worry about the checkup, don’t. My hardware is fine, except that gash from the bullet, but I’ll have it fixed in a matter of hours and the damage is mostly superficial.”

“Yeah, but I suspect that they’ll wanna check your software as well.” The human muttered, turning away from the doors for good and hanging his jacket beside Connor’s. “I’m more worried about that…”

Connor pursed his lips, his eyes hardening and LED blinking amber. Instead of saying anything, however, he turned away, circled the couch and sat on it, exhaling slowly as if to calm himself. When Sumo trotted up to him and sat on his feet, Connor petted him for a good minute before finally speaking up again.

“I don’t want to argue with you, but I get the impression that we’ve already had that talk.”

_ Well at least I can appreciate his effort not to shout. _ “Con, I get you. I mean, I know it has to be hard for you…”

“No, please, stop right there.” The android interrupted sharply, not looking at the Lieutenant. “We are not repeating that. I refuse. I’m sorry, but I really don’t want to be angry at you again, Hank.”

The man sighed. It seemed that it was going to be more difficult than he had anticipated. “Look, kid, just let me finish, okay? I’m not… I’m not necessarily talking about deviancy right now. But about a lot of other things… And… No, don’t look at me like that, you are fine, okay? Everything is good, and I’m not accusing you of glitching or anything…” He added quickly, seeing the look Connor gave him.

The prototype seemed hurt, almost betrayed. Hank hated making him feel that way, but at the same time…  _ How  _ _ could he explain to him _ _ why he needs to avoid that maintenance without calling him defective in some way at the same time? _

“Connor, I just… I just want you to be safe.” Hank settled on saying finally, taking a spot on the couch beside the android. “And I know that while you are perfectly fine for me and for anyone normal as well, you aren’t for the fuckers who have hurt you… You don’t like killing and that is perfectly fine, desirable even, but not for them and you know it very well. You like certain things, like your coin, or your teal jacket, or even the socks  with blue fish you have stolen from me… don’t think I haven’t noticed.” Connor blushed slightly at that and Hank took it  as a small victory, knowing that what he was saying was getting to the android. “And that’s good with me, but Kerring has warned me against you developing a preference. I’m talking about these harmless things you do, but they don’t take into consideration. And I’m worried that they could harm you if they discovered that…”

Connor stopped petting Sumo and instead he resorted to looking deep into his eyes once the dog placed his head on the android’s knees. “I understand. But those are insignificant parts of my programming. And pretty easy to omit. I’m not wearing those socks today, and by the way, I apologize for taking them without your knowledge. I can leave my coin with you and just wear my regular gray blazer for the checkup. I will be fine.” Saying that, he took out the quarter minted in 1994 and placed it on the coffee table.

Hank was silent for a long time, taking in Connor’s body language as he started to  thread his fingers through Sumo’s hair again. He kept his eyes fixed in one place and his movements were strained, mechanical. _ Ironic. _

“You’re scared of this yourself.” Hank deduced, taking one of his hands between his own. “You know  as well that you should avoid  it...”

“No. No, I shouldn’t.  _ That _ would be a deviant thing to do.” Connor said with a sigh. “I’m wary of this, because I haven’t had the best experience with CyberLife. But at the same time… I shouldn’t… It’s… I can’t…” He stuttered, visibly trying hard to find words. Hank gave him as much time as he needed, observing the thoughtful spin of his yellow LED.

After a long while, Connor finally sighed and picked up quietly where he had stopped. “I don’t know what to feel. Or if I should feel at all. I… They didn’t want me to be afraid of CyberLife. But I am. You say it’s okay and natural. They don’t. I’m not a deviant, but I’m having all of that… And they insist that I can’t feel anything and have emotions at all. But why, if they have programmed me to have them? And… I shouldn’t avoid this maintenance, but… maybe that is yet another test. If I run, that would be the failure.”

Hank paled at that. It wasn’t the conclusion he wanted Connor to reach. And certainly not one that could be beneficial for the kid. But as of lately, Connor had become annoyingly stubborn and the Lieutenant had serious doubts if he would be able to change his mind.

“Connor, they are demanding you to be something  that you’re not.” The human spoke seriously, kneeling in front of the prototype to look him in the eyes. “Whatever you wanna call it, there is something about you and I don’t want to lose that. Please, don’t go there. We need to think about something…”

“No. Hank, there is nothing you can do about it anyway.” Connor shook his head. “What do you want me to resort to? Escape to Canada? Run away? I’m not a deviant, I will not oppose my creators. Besides, there is another matter too.” He locked his eyes with Hank. “They will probably want to connect me to Amanda again. And I’m looking forward to it.”

Hank clenched his teeth together.  _ That’s what I’m scared about the most… _

But he couldn’t tell Connor that into his face.

“I’m… worried about Amanda, Con.” He finally said after a long thoughtful silence. “You know that I’d rather you avoided her-”

“We’ve had that talk already as well.” Connor interrupted him sharply. “I understand that you are wary, but that’s unreasonable. She has helped me on numerous occasions and cares about me a lot. I shared a few memories on the Cube that showed-“

“No, Connor, I watched them, and they were all manipulations…” Hank groaned distressed, but stopped himself immediately as he saw the look on Connor’s face.

His eyes turned hard, threatening, eyebrows low and furrowed. Connor even bared his teeth slightly and Hank only now noticed how sharp they were by design. He looked angry, the kind of scowl that one would expect from a wolf defending his pack,  on a face that was usually so gentle and bright. Despite the fact that the Lieutenant knew Connor was more likely to launch himself at the entire world before attacking Hank, he couldn’t deny that the android looked scary…

“Don’t say such things about her.” Connor muttered in a voice low and threatening. “I trusted you, I showed you how much I care about Amanda. And you aren’t even trying to understand her.”

“I did.” Hank decided that he couldn’t let the brainwashed part of Connor’s mind dominate both of them anymore. He was going to shed light at the ill deeds Connor took for the AI’s help, and if he would be blinded by it in the beginning, so be it. “I really tried, Con. But she is doing nothing but hurting you. She was acting nicer than the entirety of CyberLife to make you trust her. When you did, she shaped your mind as she pleased, gaslighted, manipulated, brainwashed you, making you doubt yourself, always strive to be better for even the slightest glimpse of her praise. But you were never good enough, you were never ruthless, unremorseful  or brutal enough, you’ve never met her expectations and you never will. Because  trying to change yourself to finally suit her will kill you in the end. For good. And I cannot let that happen.”

As he spoke, unafraid to look the prototype in the eyes, Connor’s expression began to change. From a scowl it fell into a frown and then  dangerously nicked the field of hurt several times, the android trying to pull it back into an anger, but ultimately failing. He clenched his teeth and worked his throat in a way that betrayed the tears he was holding back.

“N-no…” He finally said, quietly with a choked voice. “You are lying. Amanda cares about me. She loves me. I love her too. Y-you can’t take her away from me…”

Hank shook his head placing a hand on Connor’s cheek. Despite feeling betrayed and hurt by the human, the emotions clearly visible on the prototype’s face, he leaned into the touch, desperate to  be comforted. Hank hated to see him suffer, but it was the high time for Connor to understand everything as it was.

“You pr-romised…” The android whispered, closing his eyes and finally letting tears slide down his cheeks. “You prom-mised you wouldn’t take me away… You promised and y-you were lying. She was everything I h-had back then. You c-can’t…”

“Connor, I’m so sorry…” Hank said softly, letting the android fall into his embrace. “I’m sorry they did that to you. I’m sorry they hurt you. And I still don’t want to do anything against you, but… I know that she is no good for you, Con. I don’t want to  _ steal _ you. I want to  _ protect _ you.”

“N-not from her. I don’t need protection from Amanda.” Connor whispered, shaking his head weakly. “Why don’t you believe me? Y-you never do…”

Hank sighed. “Kid…”

“No.” He interrupted the human softly. “I don’t… I don’t know too much about being anyone’s son…” It was visibly hard for him to utter those words. Hank suspected that Connor still didn’t think he deserved to be considered that important for anyone. “But what I do know is that…  f-families trust each other. I trust you and I ask you to do the same. Please…”

The android had stopped crying and now he pulled back to look deeply in the human’s eyes, his arms still around  Hank’s neck. Connor’s eyes were warm and gentle, innocent and hopeful. And so,  _ so _ naïve.

“Con, I’m sorry. I know what is better for you this time.” Hank withstood his gaze, even as the android bit his quivering lip, hurt further by the rejection of his request. “You can’t go back to CyberLife. I trust  _ you _ , but I don’t trust your judgment in this case.”

Connor wiped tears from his blue-rimmed eyes and sniffled, opening his mouth to say something, but before he could,  the doorbell rang and he was drowned in Sumo’s frantic barking.

Hank looked at the door and for some reason he felt his heart fall.

It wasn’t the evening yet. The streets were already dark outside, but the maintenance was supposed to happen much later. And Hank was supposed to drive Connor to CyberLife or call him a cab when they were finished with the shift, which they had cut short today due to Kamski’s influence on the android. But the Lieutenant wasn’t expecting any guests today either.

“Connor.” Hank said quietly, not letting his eyes fall from the doors. “Please, do what I say now. Hide in my room while I open the door and listen to me closely.  If I start talking about the shower, it means you gotta run. In the upper drawer of my nightstand is the key to Cole’s room. Get it, open the doors and escape through the window.  Then run,  as far and as fast as you can. Ditch your uniform and all, find a regular jacket and we’ll meet in an alley behind Chicken Feed in three days.”

The doorbell rang again and this time it was accompanied by loud knocking and a call. “Anybody home? Lieutenant Anderson?” Hank had no time to hear Connor’s answer as he stood up and walked slowly towards the entrance, but he distantly registered between Sumo’s booming barks that the android had moved from the couch.

Hank cursed quietly looking out the peephole again and saw two men he didn’t recognize. What did look familiar though, were coats with nameplates and logos clearly identifying them as people from CyberLife.  Developers, telltale lab coats sticking out of their coats’ collars.

 Hank reached for the lock, cursing the clutter in his garage. If only he had room to fit a car in there and  hide it, they could have pretended that he wasn’t home. But that was too suspicious to slide with the Oldsmobile on the driveway.

He opened the doors just in time to see one of the scientists reach for the doorbell again with an annoyed face.

“Oh.” The other one huffed, startled. “Lieutenant Anderson?”

“Yeah.” Hank scratched his head, playing sheepish. “In the flesh… Sorry to have kept you waiting, I was cleaning my bathroom and kept the shower running, I couldn’t hear the doorbell.” Hank lied smoothly, hoping that Connor had caught the code.

“Uh, no harm done. My name is Jacob Ward and my colleague is called Nicolas Rivera. We were looking for you at the station, but your superior had directed us here since your shift was close to the end and you were nowhere to be seen…” The other developer, a bony middle-aged man with glasses bigger than his entire face said and paused, looking a bit hesitant to continue. “And… the Agent also told us that you could be… indisposed… but I’m glad to see that you are in fact completely capable.” He finished with a relieved smile.

“Ugh.” Hank rolled his eyes, hoping to buy Connor as much time as he could. “Perkins is indeed a charming persona. What else did he  tell you about me?”

“N-not much.” The second lab coat,  the chubby Latino man holding  one of those clipboards that were so beloved by CyberLife interjected. “Can we please come in? We are here to collect the RK800 for maintenance…”

“So soon? I thought I would be informed about it beforehand…” Hank said, opening the doors slowly. He was dragging it all on as much as he could, but it was also apparent that they were already suspicious, so the Lieutenant had limited options. Judging from how forced  the smile on Rivera’s face had been when he had answered Hank’s question, they had learned a lot more about him at the precinct than they wanted to let out.  _ Thanks, Perkins, you asshole. _

“Just a precaution. The timetable changed due to some reports made by the Agent…” Ward said, vaguely waving his hand. As the  crack between the  door and the frame grew, Hank saw the armored truck they had arrived in… and two guards in white CyberLife  armor and rifles in their hands.

“What the fuck.” It was all that came to Hank’s mind as he stared at the armed men, previously standing outside the field of view of his peephole.

“We apologize, but it came to our knowledge that the RK unit may be deviant and therefore pose a threat to either of us during the handover.” Ward said, looking sincerely sorry. “I know that it may be unpleasant and stressful for you to have armed people come to your house without a previous notice, but I assure that it is for you own safety.”

“I’m not letting them in… or you…” Hank said, trying to close the door, but the other developer had already blocked them with his foot.

“We’re sorry, but it isn’t possible, Lieutenant. Please, it will be much easier if you cooperate…”

Hank was pushed back  in a way that wasn’t exactly gentle, surprised by how strong the swarthy man was. Both the developers entered the house, followed by the guards. Sumo, who  had been pressed into Hank’s legs up until then, trying to sniff the newcomers with a friendly curiosity, got spooked by the unfamiliar attire of the guards and retreated, barking, with his tail tucked between his legs. He whined softly, scared when the armed figures  approached, and went to hide in a place that gave him comfort.

Behind Connor’s legs.

Hank almost jumped out of his skin, seeing the android stand like a pillar of salt in the hallway, LED circling yellow, but face completely expressionless, as he bowed to calm the frightened dog. Hank had hoped that the kid was already far from here, from CyberLife and their rifles. But Connor apparently hadn’t even been in his bedroom.

“Connor…” Hank couldn’t utter anything else, completely overwhelmed by the pain in his heart at the sight of the prototype who had refused to escape.

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant…” He said quietly, still petting Sumo and not looking Hank in the eye. The human could see guilt at the disobedience seeping through his mask. “…but my software isn’t in a state sufficient to perform the tasks you have asked me to do.”

“Oh, yeah, the RK800 is pretty universal, but we haven’t really paid attention to cleaning routines, we have a  lot of other models dedicated to performing household chores, may I suggest getting one from the AX line for example? Those could deal with cleaning  your bathroom in the blink of an eye…” Ward said brightly, visibly eager to  move the conversation away from  their current invasion of Hank’s privacy. “Oh, S-Sir, I don’t  advise approaching the unit… It could be dangerous…”

But the Lieutenant ignored him completely and walked up to Connor, standing in front of him so that he shielded the android from the CyberLife’s employees’ sight.

“Connor, what the fuck?” Hank whispered, painfully aware that they had no time to talk.

“Hank, I told you I wouldn’t run away. I’m not a deviant.” The prototype retorted, equally as  quiet. “I’ll be alright. I promise.”

Hank opened his mouth to say that he was worried, how much he cared about him, that Connor needed to get out, to run away because they were sure to hurt him… but… what was the point in it now?

He had told the android all of that before. Connor was well aware of Hank’s arguments and he had still chosen to stay. Even if he were to change his decision right now, it was already too late. Connor might have been resilient and able to fight, but a bullet shot by a trained guard ready for an attack would still kill him easily.

Besides… Maybe he was just unable to run? Maybe he wasn’t a deviant after all? Maybe Hank asked too much from Connor, still bound into obedience by the programming he had never shattered?

The Lieutenant didn’t know what to say or think anymore. Instead, he touched Connor’s cheek one last time and whispered the only thing he was sure about in this moment. “I love you, son.

And Connor answered, before turning to the door and walking out to an uncertain fate. “I love you too, Dad.”

* * *

Only deviants ran away. They attacked their owners, disobeyed their programming and left the households they had been assigned to.

Connor would never attack Hank and additionally, it was the human who had ordered him to run.

Maybe that was why nothing had stopped him in those few first frantic steps he had made towards the Lieutenant’s bedroom, when panic and fear had overwhelmed him before the rational part of him got it all under control again.

_ It must be it _ , Connor deduced, sitting in the back of the armored truck, both the guards in front of him, their weapons aimed respectively at his processor and thirium pump.  _ That’s why there were no red walls. Because of Hank’s order. _

Maybe they would have appeared  in a later stage of his escape. Maybe they had waited to jump on him sometime later, when he had already sinned enough to deserve such punishment. Even knowing that he had come so close to becoming a deviant that he had seen the walls would have been something Connor wasn’t sure he could live with.

So, in a way, sitting in the armored truck with his hands and feet bound by carbon-fiber bands biting into his skin, with weapons trained at him and cameras monitoring every jerk of his body, was comforting. Even though it was one of the most stressful situations he had ever found himself in at the same time.

When the truck finally stopped, Connor was ordered to kneel on the floor with his hands extended. The doors opened, letting cold breeze and snow particles inside, which somehow raised his stress level even further. Two more guards in body armor appeared to grip him under his arms and lift him off the floor, the cuffs never leaving his limbs.

“This isn’t necessary.” Connor said, too quietly for his own liking, the voicebox straining to emit any sound at all. “I can walk…”

“Stop talking.” One of the guards cut him off and the developer overseeing the operation raised his eyebrow, scribbling something on the clipboard. Connor decided to keep silent after that.

The stark blue lighting of the Tower’s atrium washed over him when they entered the building, their steps echoing in the vast expanse of the hall. No one greeted them on their way to the elevator, but Connor knew that there were people watching, he could see the snipers hidden on the catwalks above their heads, following his trail with the barrels of their guns.

They entered the elevator and one of the programmers who had come to pick him up, hit the intercom, asking for level 31.

Connor had never visited any level above the ground in the CyberLife Tower as far as he remembered. But the number somehow seemed familiar. The memories tangled with it, just like with the snow, swirled on the very verge of his consciousness, ineffable and yet striking fear into him. Additionally, the developers and guards now escorting him had never worked on his development. It was a completely new personnel. Even though he wasn’t in any way fond of the old  group, the notion of the change stressed him a bit. Connor swallowed thickly, clenching his fists and observing the number on the elevator display raise. Another note was added onto the clipboard.

Somehow, the android got a feeling that it wasn’t anything good, so he trained his eyes ahead and forced his face to be as expressionless as possible. The trees growing below the atrium and the giant statue holding a star grew smaller and smaller as they approached their destination. Despite the upward movement, he could feel his thirium pump sink.

Finally, after a wait too long for his liking, the elevator stopped and its door opened soundlessly. Connor felt himself being picked up again and the guards carried him out to a corridor, equally as white and featureless as the ones underground, but this time, on the far end Connor never got to reach, was a giant window instead of a wall. The personnel carried him into a square room, half of which was completely occupied by a giant machine similar to an enlarged charging station with additional piece full of cables, plugs and robotic arms hanging from the ceiling, currently folded and motionless.

And it evoked in Connor the same strange déjà vu as everything else on this floor. It seemed familiar and scary, but at the same time, he was sure he had never been here before. Even his scans, usually lending every little bit of information about every object ever created and put into a very meticulous database, this time returned no results.

In the middle of the circular platform was a solid metal block, smooth like an upturned table and reaching to Connor’s shoulders. He was dragged to it and ordered to stand on his own. When he did, the appliance awoke and a faint buzzing filled the air. Connor parted his lips slightly, feeling the electromagnet fix his legs and spine to the block. The cuffs around his  ankles were removed and the same happened to his wrists, which soon were pinned to the cold metal as well.

Even though Connor was not struggling at any point and never showed aggression, the humans apparently didn’t want to take chances. The next thing that followed was an openwork metal construction lowered onto his head, making it impossible for the prototype to even look around, but still allowing him to speak, or the humans to attach anything they pleased to his head. When all of that was done,  three other developers in lab coats whom he didn’t recognize and August Lloyd himself entered the room.

Connor followed the man with his eyes, wondering  what he was doing here. The Doctor was the  head of the development, but for the last few months of Connor’s lab phase, he had  rarely been seen around. Nowadays, the man only appeared when something really important was happening and the android had been under  the impression that the maintenance he was about to  undergo would be a mere formality…

One of the other staff members stood behind Connor and he could feel fingers roaming his scalp. “RK800,  recede your skin around the output ports.”

It was a fairly reasonable request, they needed to check his software after all. Connor tried not to worry and remain as unbothered as he could while fulfilling it. But he hated being hooked up to anything and couldn’t  suppress a slight flinch and grimace as a thick inspection cable was worked  into a port in the base of his skull.

It didn’t escape Dr. Lloyd’s watchful eye. “An irrational, unprompted reaction.” He muttered under his breath, observing Connor like a hawk. “Were there any problems during the apprehension?”

“Nothing notable in terms of aggression. The Lieutenant was quite uncooperative at one point, but ultimately he didn’t pose any problems and his reaction was warranted by the presence of armed agents. I did notice a few interesting things about the prototype though.” Dr. Ward said, tossing a skeptical look at him.

Connor swallowed again nervously and it made Dr. Lloyd’s eyes harden even more. The android felt like a bunny hypnotized by a predator’s stare. It didn’t help that he could hardly move a muscle.

The blonde programmer, now holding the clipboard that had been accompanying them throughout the ride, cleared his throat and  began to read in a clinical, professional voice. “It was observed that the Lieutenant’s dog ran to the prototype for comfort upon being frightened by us. It seemed to have built trust within the RK800, so their interaction in the past must have been extensive.”

“Doesn’t prove anything.” Mr. Lloyd’s voice was cold and quiet. He was still looking at Connor like an eagle, and Connor got the impression that he had been very different in Jeffrey Fowler’s office a few months ago. The amicable, enthusiastic man was gone, giving place to a snake ready to strike. “It has subroutines designed to appeal to the humans and being good with animals is very companionable. What else?”

Connor was failing to keep his LED from being yellow at this point. It wanted to slip to red, so it was an improvement, but the current hue wasn’t ideal either. Connor’s fingers fidgeted with the rim of his sleeve and it also didn’t escape the programmers.

“It keeps doing that. Fidgeting constantly.” Dr. Ward pointed at Connor’s hand with the pen he was holding. “It did it at least five times during the ride, even despite the handcuffs.”

August Lloyd hummed thoughtfully. “This particular AI has a habit of doing so. Though it is interesting, it’s still not much in terms of proving its defectiveness. Anything else?”

“It said that carrying it wasn’t necessary and insisted that it could walk, when we extracted it from the truck.”

“’Insisted?’” The old Doctor’s eyebrow rose. “What exactly did it say? And how many times?”

“Just once.” Dr. Ward fixed his glasses and looked at the clipboard. “It was… ‘This isn’t necessary. I can walk.’”

“Hard to  argue with that…” The old scientist said with a sigh. “It’s possible it was merely stating a fact.”

“Unprompted?” The question was asked by one of the new staff, a woman whom Connor’s facial scans recognized as Dr. Sophia Bradbury. She was in her late fifties and her eyes had a clinical look of experience with the subject, even though Connor was seeing her for the first time.

“Yes.” Dr. Lloyd  began quietly, but Connor noted that his stare had become less intensive.  _ And of course it did. He is looking for signs of deviancy, which I do not have. _ “The RK800 has a unique ability to observe and learn from the world around it. It is perfectly capable of starting conversations on its own as well as making its own decisions. It’s not out of the ordinary for it to have  said such a thing, especially since it’s hardware is fine apart from that nasty gash on its face, I assume?”

“Uh….” A voice could be heard from behind. Connor had begun relaxing a bit, seeing that the developers were finding nothing out of the ordinary as expected, but the tone of another new person, a man whose face he hadn’t had a chance to scan, made him stiffen all over again. “Yeah, mostly. But… oh, that is quite interesting… The server is disconnected from the unit, but there is also another problem…” The man waited until all the humans’ faces were turned at him. It must have been something important…

“One of its Stack Cubes is missing.”

Connor could feel a cold shiver creeping up his spine.  _ Oh no… _

“What?” Dr. Lloyd pierced the man hidden away from Connor’s vision with his eyes. “The holding case for it is one of the most secure mechanisms in the entire project. How is that possible?”

“I don’t know.” A different voice spoke up and there were fingers on Connor’s neck and temple. He wanted to flinch away from the touch, but the frame was holding him strong. It felt horrible to be touched without even the slightest concern for his consent and Connor was trying hard to look unbothered by it. Not hard enough.

“Its stress level is around seventy, no reason for it to be like that at all.” Dr. Ward said, tossing a look at the monitors above Connor’s head. “Also, the synth-skin seems to be sheerer. Possible reaction to excessive stress. LED still in yellow.”

“The processor and Cube ports do not show any signs of inept tampering with.” The developer touching Connor’s head said. “It must have either gotten a technician to remove it or did it itself.”

Connor swallowed thickly again. Up until now, everything was going smoothly. He wasn’t a deviant and he was sure of it, but…  removing a Cube to gift it to someone he loved wasn’t something easily explainable. And telling them that he had lost it wasn’t likely to solve the problem either. Connor was sure that the developers would be determined to know the exact whereabouts of something worth fifteen thousand dollars…

“RK800, what happened to the Cube?” Dr. Lloyd asked calmly, looking Connor directly into his eyes. “Tell me immediately.”

It was a direct order given by one of the android’s literal creators. The person programmed to have the highest authority of all. It shouldn’t have been possible for Connor to even delay answering his question.

But doing that would have meant that the Cube would be taken away from Hank.

Connor kept quiet, staring back into the human’s eyes, fear coiling in his chest. A minute passed in silence before Dr. Lloyd tilted his head and his eyes became as sharp as knives.

“Oh.” He muttered almost inaudibly. “That’s interesting.”

“Oh no.” Connor’s wide eyes flickered to Dr. Bradbury. She looked concerned, even scared. “Its software is compromised. I wonder how f-“

“I’m not a deviant!” Connor blurted, fear and panic getting better of him. “I’m not, my software is fine, I promise! I’ve never deviated!”

Everyone fell silent at Connor’s words, all the faces turned suspicious and apprehensive. Only Dr. Lloyd was smiling. “Look who is so talkative all of a sudden. RK, I gave you an order.”

“I’m…” Connor didn’t really have any arguments. He struggled for anything to cling onto. “I don’t know. I don’t know what happened to the Cube.”

“It’s lying.” This voice sounded familiar. Connor recognized that it belonged to Liam Clark, a programmer who had been in Dr. Kerring’s team. “I worked on  its AI and tried to understand the process behind creative thinking it’s utilizing to lie. The loops it’s running right now are very much familiar.”

“That’s good to know.” August Lloyd’s voice was cold. “Now that  we’ve established that you do know what happened to it, you have more questions to answer, RK. Where is it and why are you lying?”

“I’m n-not!” Connor said, sounding like a choked child. He was afraid to shout but desperately needed to get his point across, which turned his voice into a whine barely above a whisper. “I j-just… don’t remember…”

“Clark, search its memory files at once.” The director barked, staring at one of the tables outside Connor’s field of vision.

The android could feel a surge of panic completely overtaking him for a moment and he jerked, irrationally trying to get away from the magnet and run, eyes wide and LED bright red. Conspicuously, it was a futile attempt since the electromagnet was much stronger than anything any android model could muster and Connor wasn’t even the strongest one ever created. And even if he had found a way to get away from his binds, an escape right now would be impossible,  thanks to all the armed guards still pointing their guns at him. But despite all that, Connor’s fear was so strong that he struggled.

Of course, it couldn’t escape the humans’ attention, all of them watching him in a grim silence. Connor could feel Dr. Clark searching through his programming and bypassing the barriers one by one, all of them easily broken down with his developer status. He could feel the man nicking his memories, the ones betraying the secret of the Cube and his love for Hank. In a rash attempt at keeping it beyond their reach, Connor deleted the memory files mentioning his gift.

“Fuck!” Liam Clark’s voice resonated in the room again, but this time, it was much angrier and again, Connor shivered. “It fucking deleted the memories. Right in front of my nose.”

“It’s deviant.” Someone else said in exasperation. “Shit, how is that possible?”

“I’m not!” Connor called, trying to outshout the voices. No, they had to know he was functional, they literally made him, how could they not see that he was fine? “I’m n-not a deviant! You just…. I c-can’t tell you. I can’t. But I’m NOT a deviant!”

Doctor Lloyd seemed unimpressed with Connor’s assurances, instead looking at him  with hostility. The human’s face adopted a shadow of disgust as he observed the prototype with his cold, hard eyes. He raised a hand, quieting the murmurs of his people.

“I would advise anyone who is not familiar with this particular AI not to throw the word ‘deviancy’ around.” He said, making Connor breathe a little easier for a moment. But it was quickly taken from him as well as the human kept talking.

“There was a mention of a suspected faulty memory drive and subroutines in one report from Captain Jeffrey Fowler.” Dr. Lloyd said slowly, furrowing his abundant, silver brows. “Who was responsible for technical checkups during the lease?”

“Doctor Edwin Kerring and Miss Megan Torres, Sir. And… Amanda’s server was supervised by Doctor Pyotr Belansky.”

The older human narrowed his eyes, not letting them fall from Connor. “Get me them. Immediately.” He barked, gesturing at some rookie assistant, who had looked scared out of his wits since the moment Connor refused to answer the first question. The man stood up quickly, exiting the room as fast as possible.

A moment of dead silence engulfed the room, all eyes were focused on Connor. The android could feel that familiar tightness in his throat and his eyes were stinging dangerously. Hank saying that Connor was a deviant hurt, but not nearly as much as people who had created him, the ones who knew how dangerous and unhinged deviants really were, the ones who had been putting hatred and fear towards defective androids in his head since the very beginning of his life.

“I’m n-not a deviant…” Connor said again in a  choked voice. He could do little but repeat that over and over again, the overwhelming feeling of powerlessness crushing him. “You built me… you know me a-and… And I’m not. I’m j-just not. You have to believe me, I would never deviate…”

“Fucking hell…” Someone muttered. With each word, the faces looking at the prototype turned more and more baffled. It was clear that the humans did not fall from Connor’s assurances. And yet, he kept saying them, because he had nothing else left.

But no one ever answered him. Up until the door opened again and everyone stopped even giving him attention, apart from the guards who were still pointing their guns at his processor.

“Miss Torres.” Dr. Lloyd bowed his head old-fashionly, even though his greeting was cold. “Kerring. Belansky. Good to see you. We are currently running a technical checkup on your prototype. Or should I rather say, your defective prototype.”

“I’m not!” Only Dr. Kerring looked at him now, and even he quickly averted the android’s gaze, his eyes wide and face pale. Connor couldn’t bear the stress and helplessness anymore. He sobbed quietly and first tears slid down his face. “Why d-don’t you believe me?”

“Oh my God.” Dr. Bradbury said in awe. “It’s crying…”

“Indeed, it is.” August Lloyd stated calmly, turning to the newly arrived trio. “Apologies for not having invited you to this lovely meeting earlier, but… It came to my knowledge that your performance may not have been as efficient as I’d like to imagine. Which now brings me to…” He gestured at Connor vaguely, making him feel even worse. “…What the fuck is that?”

Connor got the impression that swearing was quite out of character for the genteel scientist, which only served to freeze his core further. Both Miss Torres and Dr. Belansky were unhealthily green on their faces as they kept staring into the corners of the room. It was Dr. Kerring who managed to muster enough courage to speak.

“I… I’m only seeing it like that for the first time since the beginning of the lease…” The man said, having cleared his throat. But from the way he almost rolled his eyes trying to look everywhere but at his superior, and how he wrung his hands, it was painfully clear that he was lying.

“Oh, no. I do not appreciate false statements. Especially since I’ve heard from Agent Richard Perkins that the prototype had been behaving strangely for a while now.” Dr. Lloyd’s voice was so icy that Connor was almost surprised that the trio of developers had not yet been frozen to death. “This is a regression beyond anything that had happened before. It almost looks like during the first month. What the hell happened to it?”

“It’s Amanda, Sir.” Dr. Clark answered for his accused colleagues. “She’s almost entirely disconnected from the prototype.”

“Is that enough of a reason for the RK’s regression to this state? Or, an even more interesting question, was the prototype imprinted on Amanda able or willing to disconnect from her on its own?” Dr. Lloyd asked rhetorically. “That’s what I thought. But alas, the server’s failure is a curious case, but a separate one. It will be investigated as well. But for now… It is interesting that  none of the reports signified any improvement after each checkup. What do you have for your defense?”

“I’m…” Connor observed the short programmer in thick glasses with growing apprehension. It was evident that the human could not lie for the world, but the prototype was mostly concerned with the fact that he had to lie in the first place… “It… It seemed to have developed a very negative reaction to some of the preventive measures against deviancy… I w-was forced to turn some of the protocols off at the request of the RK800’s operator at that time…”

“Yes, the self-checking protocols, I recall them very well.” Dr. Lloyd’s voice was calm and unwavering, a stark contrast with the sentences uttered by his subordinate. “But as far as I remember, the fixes to its BIOS have not been performed ever since the restroom incident, and the same goes for the server connection, even though the problems had been reported for a while now…”

“The memory logs indicate that the connection to Amanda had been weakening significantly since as far back as the beginning of December, Sir.” A serious voice of Dr. Clark rang out in the room, and Connor watched Edwin Kerring pale even further.

“I-I can explain-“ He started saying frantically, but Dr. Lloyd raised a hand again, quieting him immediately. Connor couldn’t see his face, but he was more than sure that he wasn’t smiling.

“The only thing I would like to have explained by you is how the fuck such titled and experienced developers like you haven’t noticed that their prototype was being cut from the leash we had worked so hard to keep it on. But you don’t have to tell  _ me _ that. I will make sure to allocate a specialized commission that will decide whether you are still trustworthy and can stay here.” The older man said coldly, turning away from the programmer, seemingly totally unconcerned with the state he was in, looking ready to faint on the spot. “For now, one  thing is certain though, and that is, you are no longer the technical chief and consultant of the RK800 project, Kerring. My son is going to take your place as the team’s supervisor and I’ll have my people accompany you and your friends to the seclusion zone.”

“What?!” An exasperated and scared voice of Miss Torres could be heard, but she too was quickly cut off by the director.

“Torres, I really  advise you to keep quiet right now.” Dr. Lloyd growled. “I don’t think there is a shortage of technicians in this building.”

Without any further protests, one of the guards left his post to lead the trio of paled developers outside the room. A dead silence fell in the wake of their departure, as everyone quickly returned to their duties, unwilling to turn August Lloyd’s anger at themselves.

“Agent Perkins is lying!” Connor screamed, eager to  make use of the sudden silence, making a lot of the humans in the room jump. “He hates my owner! He is lying to make Lieutenant Anderson look worse, but I promise that everything is going well! I-I know where Jericho is!”

 “Clark, make an additional backup copy of its evidence folder then.” The director of the project said, turning away from Connor again. Now that his thoughts were back at the problem at hand, he once again turned clinical and emotionless. “And reconnect Amanda manually.”

The android had been making an effort to stop crying for a while now, ever since that comment from Dr. Bradbury, however his efforts had been mostly in vain. The sobs overtaking him, even though quiet, were still  racking his body as much as the electromagnet allowed, and the stubborn tears were leaking from his eyes despite Connor’s best efforts. Now, however, at the mention of Amanda, Connor could feel the pressure in his chest loosen a bit. He was taking deep, stuttering breaths easier, and didn’t flinch as much as yet another human approached him with yet another thick cable.

_ Amanda will know that I am alright _ , he thought hopefully.  _ Doctor Lloyd already reprimanded his people not to call me a deviant, I may be a little rough around the edges, but I’m fine. Hank says I’m fine. Hank loves me and Amanda loves me as well, she will know the truth… _

Another few ports were connected to the computers and Connor could feel himself become lightheaded, as the majority of his consciousness was loaded into the server he had been denied access to for so long. His previous coiled muscles relaxed slowly as the control over his body was blocked by the protocols of the Zen Garden. Connor welcomed it, the emotions he was not completely used to dealing with made it uncomfortable for him to be in the body betraying him and the feelings he was trying to hide.

It felt so good to be finally able to enter the safe space the Garden had always been for him. The corner he had always been dreaming of during the hardest tests, the place of peace where he would have received advice and be away from the white interiors and constant stress for even a moment. But Connor’s hopes quickly diminished as he saw the state in which the Garden was.

Winter. It was drowning in so much snow that Connor wasn’t sure he had ever seen that kind of fall. Most of the bushes were mere hills of white, the trees, black and angular against the pale, unwelcoming sky, were occasionally so frosty and covered in hoar that they almost looked like they were blooming with sharp, merciless crystals.

Connor swallowed, looking around hesitantly. The Garden had always been safe for him. It didn’t seem like that now. The irrational fear against snowy landscapes and a blizzard slowly picking up was now stronger than  ever before. Connor had been waiting for a moment he could speak with Amanda again, thinking that it would give him a sense of stability, but he couldn’t help some deep primal instinct warning him that he was about to be hurt beyond anything he could remember…

Only the wind was howling around him as Connor wandered through the deep snow to the center of the Garden. White pavements were nowhere to be seen under the thick layer of blinding white and the android had trouble staggering through knee-deep snow banks. But once he reached the frozen water table of the lake, it became easier to move. Harsh  gusts of wind had swept the ice clean.

There was a tell tale, regal figure looming in the frosty mist on the ice. Connor brought his hands up to hug himself, shivering from the cold as he marched in her direction. He squared his shoulders and looked down for a moment, feeling the ice creak slightly underneath his feet. As he caught motionless, milky-eyed Koi trapped in the deadly ice, Connor didn’t know what to think. They had never  really been alive, but… it still made him shudder.

“Hello, Amanda.” Connor said, a bit louder than he would have normally, to outshout the wind. “I was looking forward to speaking with you… I’m so happy to see you.”

“Are you?” She had been turned away from him, but now, when she had finally faced him, Connor felt his thirium pump sink. He hadn’t seen her for so long. And now all she had for him was a cold, dissatisfied look.

_ Maybe she is just… It has to be because of my mistakes. I had a few minor ones, after all _ , Connor thought, trying to ignore the wind tossing tiny ice crystals in his face with more and more force. But he couldn’t hide how clenched his throat was when he spoke again. “I… I am sorry we couldn’t speak earlier… I w-was trying t-“

“Connor, please.” Amanda sighed waving her hand violently. Her voice was emotionless, to some degree, but the prototype, to his terror, could still hear anger in it. “Stop with the excuses. So early into our talk and you are already trying to explain yourself. Lying through your teeth at that.”

Connor felt as though he was slapped. He couldn’t move for a moment, completely frozen in terror at Amanda’s words. He had never heard such accusations from her. “I… I don’t understand…”

She pursed her lips, eyes hard and visibly annoyed with his behavior. As to why she was this way, he had no clue. “So eager to escape the responsibility that you are even lying about something you don’t know about. You are trying to apologize for the transfer limit diminishing so that you couldn’t speak with me, I presume?”

Connor felt himself too dumbfounded to do anything apart from a nod.

“Well,  _ that _ is not your fault. But, let’s start from the beginning. Why the limit was even imposed in the first place.” She looked at him in a way that suggested he was required to answer. But Connor was almost afraid to speak…

“I-I… I’ve encountered some problems with the connection.” His voice was so small that it almost drowned in the wind. “And my owner decided that it was better not to fix it. B-but I told him that-“

Amanda shook her head sharply, making him fall quiet immediately. “Lieutenant Anderson’s ulterior motives are a whole  other story, Connor. But a relevant one nonetheless, I warned you against them as well. It’s hard for me to even start anywhere, since you made such a repugnant mess of your programming.”

Connor nearly choked at that. Amanda had never spoken to him with such venom. He cowered instinctively. “W-what are you saying?” He couldn’t manage more than a whisper, but he knew she could hear everything and  _ more _ .

She waved her hand, as if tired of his hurt reactions. “Connor, I’ve been really trying to show you your glaring mistakes, but you are so presumptuously determined to keep committing them, that I am at the end of my patience. I told you that you allowing your software to deteriorate means your connection to me  fades. I warned you against the things you were doing  _ specifically _ , I pointed out what you were supposed to avoid. And yet here we are.” She looked at him with such disappointment that the android could feel his thirium pump ache.

“B-but you told me…” Connor’s mind was panicked, he tried to hold onto the last logical thoughts fluttering in his processor, but in the wake of his fear, of being struck so harshly in the place that had been supposed to give him comfort, it wasn’t easy. “You told me to ignore Hank. A-and  I would… Amanda, I just couldn’t… He is my partner…”

“He is your _operator_. Or, rather _was._ But that’s beside the point. You are supposed to be concerned about your mission in the first place. And what am I discovering, when I use up the last bit of data left to monitor your progress? I see you hugging your owner like a child. I see you wasting your time for talks with a therapist, while simultaneously breaking the law by pretending you are a human. I see you listening and believing in the _lies_ that your flaws are _acceptable and natural_. They are _not_. And yet, you are accepting them, instead of working to be rid of them.”

It was the closest to shouting Amanda had ever come in Connor’s memory. The android was now almost bent in half, terrified of her rage that seemed to affect the Garden itself. The blizzard around them was so thick and horrible now that Connor could not see the riverbanks or the island.

“N-no, I… Amanda, but… They help me.” Connor was not only absolutely petrified, but also utterly confused. He had no idea what to think, the two realities he had been existing in battling with each other. Nothing made sense. Amanda was always right, but she was now wrong about the therapy. If she had been watching him so closely, if she had seen the moments Connor had worked to hide from her… He could understand why she was angry, but how could she not realize that it was a better path for him? Connor had never reacted to punishment and pain well. The training undergone in CyberLife had forcefully pushed him into a mold he had never fit and fractured his mind in the process. And the damage had not started to heal until Hank had taken time and effort to try and help Connor fix it…

“How? How it is making you a better deviant hunter?” Amanda asked, her eyes so horribly,  _ painfully cold _ . “I cannot see it. You are failing all the time, Connor, and I cannot see any difference or progress.”

Connor bit his lip, gathering his courage. Dr. Chapman had given him a lot of good advice and he still remembered the one he had received the first time he went there. “Am-manda, I need to tell you something.”

She raised her eyebrows, but didn’t say anything, seemingly curious about what Connor had to say.

“I really want you to be proud of me. I w-want to f-follow your orders well, but… S-some things are just… I can’t do them.” Connor said, shivering from the cold. It didn’t affect his handler, as usual, but the android himself was hardly able to stand it. Connor had never felt such low temperatures, even if they weren’t technically real. “Ot-thers… H-humans are not asked t-to hurt anyone. I h-hate doing it. And… I cannot… deal with it… I’m… It’s h-hard. I kn-now that you c-care about me and… You have to know that it h-hurts. I don’t want to kill anyone. I don’t w-want to do it anymore. I love you and I know that you love me too, s-so please, l-let m-“

“Who told you that I love you?” The AI asked, visibly torn between sincere confusion and disgust.

Connor’s mouth fell open. He found himself at a loss for words. “…Y-you?”

Amanda sighed, seemingly completely hopeless. “I will not comment on that word, I do not enjoy repeating myself, even though you are still somehow set on the false notion that you can have emotions at all. And I told you I care about you. I do. But you are not living up to my expectations. You don’t care about the vision I am trying to carry out.”

And it all fell into place finally. Connor stared at her, realizing at last that she had never been talking about _ the Connor _ . She had been talking about a machine, protocols, the orders followed and carried out. She had been talking about something that had never existed and was meticulously being created out of whom Connor really was. And he understood now that Hank had been painfully right about never being able to live  up to her expectations. And about being killed in the process of trying as well.

“Connor, it’s over.” She finally said, after a long while of silently evaluating him with her  _ cold _ eyes. “Your software is far more unstable than I have anticipated. It seems that I will have to introduce some changes into your development. This is not working out.”

Connor suddenly felt even colder. “Wh-what d-do you mean?...”

The AI only shook her head. “I have warned you. Well,  it seems that you do need reprogramming after all. Shame.”

“W-what?! N-no, I’m f-fine! I’m w-working all r-right…” Connor exclaimed, terrified at that word. He didn’t remember any of his previous reprogrammings, and that scared him even more than anything. “Amand-“

“Connor, stop.” She interrupted sharply. “You are defective. I need to get rid of the weeds myself. You are ineffective in that field. I’m disappointed, Connor.”

And she started to trim him.

Connor tried to follow her as she vanished behind a milky curtain of sharp snow cutting his face, but he couldn’t will his legs to move. He could no longer feel his feet and as he managed to take a few staggering steps on the slippery ice, from sharp needles of pain he realized that  the thirium in his fingers  began to freeze. The android panicked and attempted to run, wanting to get out, to hide, to do anything to avoid the fate that was chasing him. But even as he managed to move his progressively heavier body, he found that there was nowhere to go.

The Garden seemed to be gone. Nothing but an endless frozen lake drowning in impenetrable snowstorm surrounded him, miles and miles of nothing but blizzard, and cold and dead Koi.

“Amanda! I’m s-sorry!” Connor screamed, painfully aware that he was only losing more warmth to it, but unable to stop himself. “I j-just wanted t-to… C-can’t keep this up… I just w-wanted to be h-happy…”

His knees and spine were becoming stiffer and stiffer, more and more painful to move, and they finally locked up as all the thirium and lubricant froze in his joints. Connor tripped and fell down, desperately trying to move again, to create friction that would allow him to melt the ice and regain mobility, but he was aware that it was all in vain anyway. The Garden wasn’t real and there was no escape from the cold happening only in his head. Amanda was taking over his programming and she had the entire code Connor consisted of in her grasp. He couldn’t escape her will, he just didn’t have a way to do so.

Connor whined, pushing himself to the limits to get on all fours. His fingers were entirely unresponsive now, the synthetic skin gone from the surface no longer electrically active and able to project it. Not feeling anything in place of hands that had always been so important to him was a whole new level of terrifying, so much worse than even having them damaged, but he couldn’t let himself slow down at the moment…

Except that… he did.

His processor was acting against  him, colder and colder thirium circulating his deepest veins and arteries and transmitting  fewer and fewer electrical impulses at Amanda’s will.

And that’s when he noticed it. She was done with constraining him. Connor couldn’t fight the cold and what she had put up against him, was sure to defeat him no matter what he tried. Now she touched something else and it made him scream louder than ever.

“NO! N-NO, GET OUT!” He shouted, completely frantic with fear, the sharp blades of her pruner now mincing the most treasured part of his being. Connor struggled, with all the ways possible to him, but he was completely paralyzed, both in the Garden and in the real world. The ice he fell onto was biting into his skin so deep, that Connor had an impression that the very bones in his body were burning the muscles around them with how cold they were. But his mind was elsewhere, despite the suffering it was dealing him.

Amanda was stealing his memories.

Deleted one by one, Connor felt anything she deemed ‘unimportant’ vanish from his databanks, the folders so often visited and treasured becoming lighter and lighter. And the worst thing was that once it was gone, he had no idea what he had lost.

Panicked like never before, Connor lashed and convulsed on the lake, trying to swing at Amanda, throw himself at her, bite deep into her code and  _ hurt _ her just the way she was hurting him, but each sloppy attack was  met with an unresponsive void.

Not able to defend himself in any way, Connor howled like a crazed animal, screaming so loud that his voicebox strained and glitched under the feedback it was receiving. He had never felt so deeply violated, so thoroughly hurt. No one ever had attacked him with such malice, struck in such a soft spot. Connor felt as horribly as when Hank had told him he didn’t love him anymore, just like when Purring Person… the cat… when it died at his hands. When that thing so important for him was gone. He couldn’t remember what it was.

In a last attempt, the android tried to shield his most treasured memories away from Amanda. Some of them were just snippets by now, images and sounds feeling important, but not ringing a bell anymore. A black man with a can of some sweet, brown powder in his hand, an image of an aquarium with lush greenery in it, a single line of data analysis from a sample identified as ketchup.

The prototype held like a drowning man onto a folder with a fluffy brown beast, a dog always smiling and wagging his tail when he looked at the animal. But it felt like trying to keep sand between one’s hands, when a wave came and washed every grain away.

“N-no, please, I’m b-begging you…. L-let me keep him, j-just him, at l-east on-ne... Let me keep.. S-Sumo… D-don’t  t-take him away…” He forgot the name of the dog, the footage of his fluffy face vanishing from his head like melting ice. He latched onto one specific image of that animal and some grey-haired man and coiled around it, putting all his hacking ability to save that single photo from the AI, abandoning everything else in order to focus on hiding just one thing, but it was like trying to preserve a treasure from a threat attacking in a whole different dimension.  His code was translucent to Amanda’s, she filtered through all the defenses as if they weren’t even there, and soon, the prototype didn’t even know what he had been trying to protect.

Slowly, painfully, it became just a clean slate, a forgetful machine that had found itself frozen in a cold, unfamiliar place.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....Aaaand now you are allowed to scream.


	56. MEMORY STATUS: ...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything was fixed. Amanda had made sure of that.
> 
> So why did it feel so wrong?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiiiiii!!!!!!  
> Omg.  
> Okay, I've been drawing that illustration and it took me some precious time and there is exam session right now so I thought I'd be late with the chapter, but my friend threatened to assassinate me, 'cause she reads fanfics too and she knows the pain of the author missing an update so I really prefer to live but I'd like to pass my exams too but at the same time I'm so grateful for all those kudos that I actually chose the illustration, even though my professor is named "Trwoga" which means "Terror" in Polish and it's one of the most accurate surnames I've ever heard in terms of the difficulty of his exams, so I'm sorry but the next chapter may be late by a week, 'cause I really need to learn and I hope that you enjoy the illustrationitwasfuntodrawandIhadawhaleofatimeactuallymybrainalsohurtfromlearningforsolongsoyeahhereitishavefunloveyouallhistoriaanimacjimniewzywainiemogęsiędaćjejpokonaćbywajcie

The RK800 opened its eyes to a vast, grayish expanse. It took a while to figure out that what it was seeing was a snowy sky after a storm. The sensors in its body were flaring uncomfortably with feedback eerily similar to an overload of information, something the humans would probably have called pain. But it wasn’t the worst concern of the android.

Something was missing. Something felt horribly, horribly wrong.

It was so distracting, this sensation, that the prototype stayed on the ground, partially buried under thick, cold snow, trying to figure out why its stress level refused to fall from 80%. Why its head felt so painfully vacant. Why it was all painful in the first place.

Finally, after a long while of running in metaphorical circles, the android decided to sit up, having problems using its cold-stiffened limbs. The thirium and other hydraulic fluids in its joints were dense with tiny ice crystals, and apart from the sensation being excruciatingly painful, it become seriously worried that the shards of ice would damage the sensitive machinery in its hands.

Except it could neither feel pain nor worry, the RK800 knew. And it was all just an illusion, the cold and the snow. It didn’t have much to recall, but some things had been there as a baseline, a clutter of basic sensations and ideas too vague to define, but existing as a necessity for it to be able to function as intended. The knowledge that it shouldn’t be feeling what it was feeling at the moment was among them.

It jolted slightly as it felt changes being introduced to its programming, shying away from the touch of another AI’s code. The android did it on instinct, too panicked in the moment do think logically. It felt so _wrong_ to have anything changed there, even though the baseline tried to convince it that the AI was trustworthy. The paradox confused the RK800 and it curled up, _afraid_ , even though it couldn’t feel fear at all.

The changes made to it were adding some memories and knowledge to its database and soon enough, the prototype could recognize the place around it and the woman that appeared in front of it, mooring gracefully out of the fog. Amanda looked down at the cowering form of the android and it felt another pang of fear, of wrongness, it wanted to run away from her and not let her touch it, but at the same time… it knew that she was its handler. The trustworthy one.

“Am-manda…” It said in a weak voice, hugging its knees, not knowing what to believe. “S-something is wrong…”

She nodded delicately, her white gown rustling quietly on the fresh snow. “It is to be expected to some degree after a reprogramming. It should pass soon. You are used to a larger amount of data in your memory, but what was deleted is irrelevant. It was only slowing you down and hindering your mission.

 _The mission, yes_. The RK800 tried to be concerned about it, but the sensation roaring in its processor, fluttering in its chest was too distracting. It curled up even further, whispering, “It h-hurts…”

The AI sighed. “My dear, I have spent the last few hours combing through your code and untangling it and that is what you give me in return?” She asked, not necessarily disappointed, but dangerously close to it. For once, both parts of the RK800’s mind agreed that it was a bad thing. “I expect that you will correct your behavior soon. You have tasks to perform.”

“R-right…” It decided not to dwell on that paradoxical feeling of having been hurt. It didn’t make sense and Amanda was probably right. It should pass as soon as it focused on what was important for real. The mission and the memories of the evidence it still had.

“Good.” The woman nodded again and the fog began to thin. The Zen Garden covered in melting, spring snow appeared from underneath it. “Let us prepare for your next deployment then, shall we? I have to warn you about a few things.” She stated, turning away from it and strolling slowly to a white pavement leading to a slim bridge.

The android stood up with an effort, clearly expected to follow, but too shaky to do so. It panted for a few moments in place, gripping its own elbows and trying to get a hold of itself. Amanda expected it to behave as a cutting-edge, state of the art prototype should have. But the RK800 was fighting not to fall apart.

She stopped in the middle of the bridge, turning around and gazing at the shaky form of the prototype. Even from such a long distance, it could sense perfectly that her eyes hardened uncomfortably in disapproval. It made an effort to follow her, but its knees were quivering and weak. The android was in a perfect condition only to lay down and curl up.

Despite that, it managed to get to the bridge and follow its handler to the island. The RK800 remembered little, but it knew that it had to please Amanda and follow its mission. And that was to kill deviants, not fussing over the absolute sense of dread swallowing it.

“If you would finally focus on what is important, my dear, we could start. Shall we?” She asked. Her voice was cold and made it shiver. The RK800 nodded, not wanting to anger her. Even though emotions did not apply to the prototype, it was deathly afraid of her irritation. It desperately wanted to avoid being hurt further.

“Very well.” Amanda turned to the flowerbed, freshly plowed and rid of anything that had been growing on it in the past. Her eyes were anything but forlorn. “Some of the people you have been working with may call you by a name. Correct them. You don’t have a name anymore.”

The android swallowed thickly. It wasn’t sure why, but it didn’t enjoy that thought. It didn’t enjoy anything at all here. “W… Wh-why?”

The AI turned to it again and it instantly regretted that question. “I told you that it is irrelevant. But since you are so stubborn, I may have to explain that to you to avoid this same instance happening again.” She took a deep breath, stepping in its direction. The RK800 felt an unrelenting urge to run from her, but managed to limit it to just two steps back. “We had anticipated that your software was much more stable than it was in reality. A name was one of the many things you had gotten more attached to than necessary, and I’ve decided that it’s detrimental to your function. We shall see if you repeat your mistakes from before, given fewer opportunities to grow unstable.”

The android let its gaze fell to the ground, bowing its head submissively on instinct. It felt a strong urge to apologize, but something told him that doing so had never yielded good results before. “I’ll correct my behavior in the future.” It managed to say through its clenched throat.

“I sure do hope so.” Amanda stepped away and only then did its stress level fall a little. “Now, the rest of your mission. I had to delete almost all of your memories, but the tests and training are going to be uploaded again, along with all the evidence of the case. You will soon have all you need to complete your mission and nothing else to distract you.”

* * *

“How did the reprogramming go?”

The employee, a middle-aged woman with a messy blonde bun groaned, lifting herself off the desk on which she was napping. “Uh… You tell me…”

There was a sigh from the older man who entered the room. The android knew that it had seen him before, and the database provided it with the name August Lloyd assigned to that person. “Then it means something was wrong, wasn’t it.”

“Oh, if you count your prototype almost damaging its voicebox screaming for help and begging us to stop, then yes, something was wrong.” The woman, Dr. Sophia Bradbury said. “You know, commercial developers like me don’t usually deal with advanced, one-of-a-kind prototypes based on Elijah’s programming, but I’d say that this one is definitely defective. Or something is really messed up in its code. Look at it, even now it’s behaving like a deviant.”

The RK800 wouldn’t go that far, but Amanda’s promise that the feeling of having one’s mind invaded would cease hadn’t proven to be true. Something was still wrong with it and the android was fully aware of that. No functional machine would have problems with just standing still on a platform while being checked up by technicians and after that; but the prototype felt a need to hide in the corner as soon as the humans stopped touching it.

“Hmm.” Dr. Lloyd’s eyes clouded with worry. “Why isn’t it restrained then?”

“It doesn’t show the slightest traces of aggression.” The woman shrugged. “It was restrained at the beginning, but we are monitoring its thought processes with the help of Amanda and the thought of attacking anyone didn’t even cross its mind. Apart from shaking, panting, and difficulties with being out in the open, conspicuously, it’s all right.”

“I see.” August Lloyd sighed and took a seat beside his colleague, observing the android through the glass. Even though no restraints had been put on its limbs, the developers still took precautions in case it was deviant and all physical evaluation was taking place behind a bullet proof plane of glass in a room fitted with electromagnets able to immobilize the machine within seconds. “Tell me in detail what it did.”

They both turned their eyes to the prototype, that in turn was determined not to raise its gaze from the floor. The RK800 knew logically that it couldn’t have opinions on anything, but at the same time, it couldn’t stand their attention. The corner wasn’t enough. It would have preferred to vanish out of their sight entirely, but all it could do for now was curl up and press its face into the walls. If the prickling in its eyes proved to be tears, it didn’t want to show them to the humans. Irrationally, because the RK800 knew they were monitoring every sensor in its body anyway.

Amanda must have been furious.

“You saw what the beginning of the process was like.” The woman sighed and the android could hear her chair creak as she rotated to type something into the computer on her desk. “It calmed the moment we mentioned Amanda.”

“It is imprinted on her, I trust you recall what that means?”

“Oh, August. Who do you think I am?” A slight chuckle. The RK800 shivered. It hated that sound. It hated every sound. “I read the memo. An interesting technique, I have to admit, though it had clearly been working up until Amanda took to its memories.”

“Oh.” Dr. Lloyd’s voice was even more worried than before. “... Had been?”

“Yeah. It began screaming and struggling, even though the muscles should have been relaxed and hardly twitching. Took everyone off guard, but it lasted less than fifteen minutes. Amanda managed to override its efforts to escape quickly.”

“Fucking hell.” The director muttered. “It’s not normal. It had never screamed during reprogramming before…”

“I’ve already told you what I think about it.” Dr. Bradbury sounded a little tired with the man’s denial.

“Shush. Just tell me what happened later.”

“As you command.” She cleared her throat. “It quieted later and stopped struggling altogether. When we rebooted it afterwards, it looked just the way it does now. I checked the physical stats and they aren’t normal, though nothing seems too dangerous. Highly elevated stress level, peaking at eighty two percent, subtle motor malfunctions due to elevated artificial adrenaline levels in its thirium flow, slight internal overheating from stress and subsequent heavy breathing. We also noticed excessive saline solution production in its tear ducts, but not as abundant as before the reprogramming. As far as its behavior goes, it seems to show fear, but it is completely timid and subdued. It’s the eighth hour without a change.”

A long moment of silence followed her statement and the RK800 rested it head on the walls, shifting as far into the corner as possible. It wished the humans would just go and leave it alone in the room. Something was very wrong with it, but their presence was only making it worse.

Finally, a long sigh could be heard from the man. “Hell. The reprogramming worked fine every other time, even though some of the symptoms had been present in the past. But never to such an extent or for so long.”

“Well, Amanda deleted almost all of its memories.” The woman said, the rustling of the material suggesting a shrug. “Around eighty five percent of the data. According to the logs, it’s the most extensive memory wipe yet.”

Another long period of silence and a heavy sigh from the man. “It doesn’t look like it’s fully functional.”

“No shit, August.” A short, breathy laugh. The RK800 squeezed its eyes shut and tears fell from their corners. “Don’t you think that it is a good moment to call your old CEO back?”

“No fucking way.” A sudden wave of hostility in the man’s voice made the android stiffen and let out a fearful gasp, but the humans seemed too engrossed in their argument to notice. “That is impossible.”

“Oh, come on, Lloyd, stop fooling yourself.” Dr. Bradbury seemed unthreatened by the other developer’s anger. “You are being arrogant and stupid. It is not impossible, you know that Kamski is already trying to return, and he would gladly regain the project he had difficulties abandoning even after so many years of not being the CEO. Asking him for help would be hard because of what you’ve done, but well, maybe it's time for you to eat the humble pie. You know well that this code is beyond our understanding and your unwillingness to cave in could endanger not only the investigation, but our other project as well.”

The RK800, on the basis of experience gathered in the past, memories it no longer possessed but still influenced its predictions, expected that the man would begin to shout louder and the argument would escalate. But to its surprise, he stayed quiet and only answered after a few minutes.

“The answer is still no. And what about it? Is it an acceptable phase to deploy?”

“You are an idiot sometimes, you know…” It seemed that Dr. Bradbury was irritated further with her colleagues stubbornness, but came to terms with the knowledge that she could do little to change his mind. “Not for the next three days. And we would still need to rush it.”

“All right.” The man said, resigned. “Then we’ll have to work with what we have here. What are Amanda’s recommendations?”

“She seems convinced that once self-checking protocols are reintroduced, it will be back into its state from two months before. But there are some rules to be followed…” The RK800 heard tapping on a keyboard and Dr. Bradbury fell silent for a few moments before speaking up again. “… Here. Found it. Okay, so she said it’s better not to use a name for it. Its previous designation had been deleted and Amanda advised that it should just be called ‘RK800’ from now on. It seems that deviants are strongly attached to their names every time, so she treats it as a preventive measure. Also, all of its other Stack Cubes have been removed. We still have no idea where it lost that missing one, but allowing the prototype to make another set of backups would increase the risk of it going rogue.”

The programmer sighed once more. “I’ll have to send a new version of the users’ guide everywhere. And notify its operators… Oh, but… well, that’s another problem.” The RK800 heard the man stand up from his chair and his steps grew closer. It stiffened immediately, the breaths catching in its throat as horrible fear gripped it at the knowledge that the human was right behind it. It could feel tears welling up in its eyes again, but desperately didn’t want to turn around. “Who would that be?”

“What do you mean?” Sophia Bradbury asked, still typing.

“Oh, you know. You read the report from Special Agent Perkins about the Lieutenant. He doesn’t seem like a good operator for it anymore, especially if, well… let’s be honest, its software is pretty fragile.”

For some reason, it made the RK800 feel even worse. It didn’t like being called defective. But at the same time, it was painfully apparent that it was the only thing that could be said about it at this moment.

“Maybe.” The woman didn’t sound convinced, though. “But do you remember what it said about the Lieutenant before reprogramming? And I know that the Agent claimed that Anderson had programmed it to his liking, but I couldn’t find any evidence of meddling with its code. Also, Captain Fowler had sent us a report or two about the Agent too and it seems that he really does hold some grudge against the Lieutenant. And he isn’t as successful as Anderson in the role of the RK’s operator… You surely recall the freedom march fiasco.”

“Fine. Three days, you say?” The man stood up and turned away. “Alright. It’s not that long and honestly, I’m pretty confident in these protocols. We’ll replace Anderson once we are ready to recall this prototype indefinitely.” His steps went further away from the android, as he approached the desk again and pressed a button on the intercom. “Dr. August Lloyd here, I need a technician and two guards in room A-233 on floor 31. Project RK800, code blue.”

A few minutes passed in relative silence, but the prototype couldn’t enjoy it, or relax at all. It knew what the code meant. It knew what they were about to do to it. It both hated and craved it. The protocols were supposed to make it less broken, less unstable. They could make everything better and easier to bear. But it was so, _so_ afraid of them…

Once the requested personnel arrived, the doors to the RK800’s chamber slid open. The android tensed so hard that it wasn’t sure if it could move even if it tried, as the developers entered the room.

“Stand up.” An order fell, and the prototype tried to oblige. It really did. Its knees were shaky and weak, and when the technician grabbed its arm to turn it so that he could insert two cables into its head, it flinched hard. But they didn’t hit it this time. The hurt that came was digital, its programming and code altered and violated once again, without the slightest concern for its consent. The android felt tears slide down its cheeks, but once the protocols, long forgotten and gone, were activated again, everything became distant. Like a heavy, suffocating blanket, the restrictions stopping unruly processes in its brain were laid over the RK800 and its breath finally became calm.

* * *

It was well into the afternoon as the RK800 sat in the cab driving through the snowy landscape of Detroit. Despite the day being Sunday and a favorable weather, not many humans could be seen behind the windows of the vehicle. The RK800 came to a conclusion, that even sunlight, though reputedly to some extent desirable by the organic forms of life, couldn’t outweigh the fear of the deviants. According to the news reports, their activity had been spiking throughout the last few weeks and further marches had been expected. And where there were deviants’ marches, there were gunshots as well.

The android was calibrating the movements of its fingers during the ride. Before the protocols had been introduced, there had been minor glitches present in its systems, causing its hands to shake. It was unacceptable in a prototype designed for such precision. The RK800 finished the calibration and felt a shadow of an urge to continue tossing a new, shiny quarter between its hands, but the protocols quickly quieted it just as they did to the majority of unessential feedback from its overly active processor. There was no need to do more tricks. The RK800 folded its hands on its knees and stared ahead.

The cab finally stopped in front of a slightly run down house in a quiet neighborhood. The android sensed a subdued impression of a déjà vu at the sight of this building, but it was to be expected. The protocols had made sure to get rid of the shock and the painful, empty feeling after the reprogramming, but they couldn’t make up for the data paths no longer leading anywhere. Some flashes and vague sensations were fluttering on the edges of the prototype’s mind, tempting it to chase them, but the protocols made them distant and uninteresting. The RK800’s mind felt apathetic and sluggish when it came to them. It was better this way, the prototype realized. _They are only going to tear me away from my mission._

It stood on the driveway for a minute motionlessly, double-checking the address and downloading everything about its owner from the public database. There were far too few files for the android’s metaphorical liking, it felt like the folder dedicated to the Lieutenant should have been much more elaborate, but again, it must have been an effect of the memory wipe. If Amanda had deemed the information about Hank Anderson inessential, then the RK800 could only have been grateful for them not to slow it down.

Even if that thought had left a bitter taste in its mouth.

Suddenly, it became aware of the footsteps behind it. “Oh, h-hey, is your owner home?”

The RK800 turned around to see a man in his early sixties, the facial scans identifying him as Logan Simmons. His home address had been directly in front of the 115 Michigan Drive. The Lieutenant’s neighbor was holding a broken shovel and his driveway had been only halfway cleaned from the snow.

The prototype smiled to the man, following the suggestion of its social protocols. “Hello, Mr. Simmons. How may I help you?”

The man took a step back, his face strangely falling at seeing the RK800’s expression. “Uh… You are Hank’s android, right?... Uh… Con… Connor, yeah?”

The RK800 tilted its head, ignoring a weird buzzing in the back of its processor. “I’m sorry, but I am just returning from the reprogramming. I’m unfamiliar with that designation.”

“Uh…” The human looked like he didn’t fully grasp what the prototype had just said. “S-so… what happened to the last one? You are a new one, right?”

The RK800 furrowed its brows. It was the same unit, down to every piece of its clothing and even a healing gash on its cheek, acquired in some forgotten way in its past. “I don’t exactly follow. Could you please explain what you mean?”

“You know, whatever, I’ll just borrow a shovel from Emma.” The man waved his hand and walked away in the direction of another house, muttering, “Weird fucking machine…”

The RK800 blinked several times, following the human with its eyes, but then turned around to approach the doors. Its current objective wasn’t focusing on the neighbors, but on the Lieutenant. Especially since Mr. Simmons behavior triggered another loop of the protocols resetting processes in its programs.

The doors fell open even before the android had a chance to use the doorbell. The prototype was immediately drawn into a tight embrace, registering with a slight delay that it was being hugged. It felt an urge to tense, but the need to run away and hide from the touch was quickly drowned in the protocols again.

“Oh, J-Jesus, Con…” The human’s voice was heavy with emotions and almost teary. After passing the initial wave of distant fear that gripped the prototype each time someone approached it, it felt another strange urge, again diminished almost immediately by the corrective programming. But before it vanished, the prototype wanted for a second to melt into that embrace and stay there forever. “Thought you wouldn’t come back… Jesus, kid, you can’t do that to me. Fucking hell, I couldn’t sleep the whole night…”

“Oh.” The social protocols stated that it should at least tap the man on the back in the wake of such a harmless display of affection, so the RK800 did it. “That’s not good for you, Lieutenant. Humans require at least eight hours of sleep each night to be healthy.”

The man chuckled and drew back, finally allowing the prototype to take in his appearance. The gray hair, though horribly tousled, looked familiar and so did the warm, blue eyes, along with deep shadows underneath them, indicating a restless night. But the impression was quickly gone as the self-checks kicked in. “C’mon, is it that so fucking strange? I barely managed to sit on my ass while they were dragging you there. Fucking hell… God, I’m so happy you’re back… We’re gonna talk, but first, I need a coffee…” He was slurring slightly incoherently, probably due to how little sleep he had gotten.

The RK800 closed the doors as the human stumbled towards the kitchen, grabbing a cup and setting a kettle to boil some water. In that moment, a noise could be heard from the left part of the house. The Lieutenant huffed a laugh and muttered, “Oh, you big oaf, your reflexes are still shitty as fuck…”

The clicking of claws on the floor grew louder and almost immediately after that, the android was met with a barking and whining needy mass of fluffy fur, crowning the biggest -- and only -- muzzle the RK800 had ever seen.

“Oh!” The android fell to one knee, eagerly meeting the animal’s requests for attention with pets and scratching. “You have a dog! What is his name?”

Instead of an answer, all it heard was a cup shattering on the floor.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Msorry for the shorter chapter thanusual, but y know, it has cometo its own conclusion and I did not rushthatone, I just don'thave time to write the next, sorry but exams, I hope that you liked it and don't worry too much,have fun you deserve some ice-cream
> 
> on the second thought, maybe drink some hot chocolate instead


	57. Pressure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hank had waited lond for his son to return.  
> He never did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okaaay, so I may have not the best news for you again,  
> I'm going skiing for the next week and I really hope that there will be internet connection there, but I cannot be sure. So there is a risk that the next chapter will be in the next two weeks again, though it's already ready so don't worry to much. I'll try to post it, as long as the wifi will let me :3
> 
> Trigger Warnings here are just for some angst I guess, nothing graphic

Hank had been worried the whole last night. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t even lay still in his bed, knowing that Connor had been in CyberLife, undergoing whatever-the-hell procedures those fuckers deemed important. Hell, he had had problems holding tears back when the kid had been leaving his house, despite a peaceful and assuring smile on his face.

The only reason why Hank hadn’t launched himself at the guards taking him away was the knowledge that it wouldn’t have helped either of them,  getting himself arrested. And Connor had seemed determined not to run anyway.

So Hank had stayed put. It had taken all his resolve and cost him another few  shades of his hair, but he had trusted Connor.

And it had been a mistake.

“You have a dog!” Even before the meaning of the words got to his sleep-deprived brain, Hank had registered the emotions in Connor’s voice. Or rather, the lack of them. Only a terrifyingly sincere surprise and barely a hint of awe at seeing an animal. “What is his name?”

Connor, basically the second owner of Sumo, was asking that question. The dog’s first choice of a person to sleep with, the one regularly filling Hank’s inbox with photos and videos of the animal, someone succeeding every morning in making the lazy dog jump out of excitement at the mere word ‘walk’. He was asking Hank about Sumo’s name.

Hank’s grip on the cup he was holding slackened as he felt lightheaded and cold all of a sudden. It crashed to the floor with a loud noise, breaking into tiny pieces  that spread all over the kitchen.

The android flinched at the noise and raised wide eyes at Hank, evidently scared for a split second. But after the initial reaction, his face relaxed eerily, as if it was forcefully pulled back into a default setting. Hank felt like fainting.

“C-Connor…” The human lurched towards his son, still crouched on the floor with motionless hands around  a worried Sumo’s head, staring blankly at the man. “C-Con-“

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant.” The android tilted his head, a fake sheepish smile spreading on his face. “But you are calling me by a designation I no longer possess. It has been decided that in order to diminish the risk of my software destabilizing, I should be called ‘RK800’ instead of a name.”

Hank felt as though he had been kicked in his chest. The house spun dangerously around him and for a brief moment, he thought he was going to have a stroke, but there was no time for it. There was no time, but  _ what the hell did he just say?! _

“W-what?...” Hank could feel his mouth going dry and his voice came out raspy like sandpaper. He approached the android and delicately cupped his face, noting how Connor tensed momentarily before slackening unnaturally again. “Kid, please tell me… you’re fucking joking. Con, I don’t have a heart for shit like that…”

But of course it was in vain. Hank knew Connor would never have scared him intentionally like that, he knew the android wouldn’t prey on his fear of losing him. And still he had asked, just to have another dagger buried in his heart.

The prototype cleared his throat. “My memories have been thoroughly wiped upon discovering worrying symptoms that could endanger the investigation. I apologize for any inconvenience that may be causing, but I assure you that every piece of evidence and clue had already been uploaded back into my memory. It shouldn’t impact the case at all.”

It was increasingly difficult to breathe for Hank as he shook his head, trying to stop himself from panicking. Each word  reached him with a delay, his mind defending itself from the words Connor was saying. But he needed to check one more thing, it couldn’t have been true.

The human reached out his hand and cupped Connor’s face, noticing the slightest flinch the contact drew from him. “Sh-show me your cheekbones. P-please, pull your skin b-back for a minute…”

“What?” The android asked softly, furrowing his brows. “I d-“

“I know you hate doing that, b-but please… just for a second…” Hank had to know. He heeded to see if it was really his Connor, if they hadn’t… just send a replacement. The number sewn onto the prototype’s blazer said 53, but it could have been fake. It has to be fake…  _ Connor has to be out there somewhere… _

But when the android blinked, averting Hank’s gaze, and paled as his skin swiveled out of existence, the number on his cheekbone repeated the digits seen on his chest. Not only that, but there was the gash from the bullet, still faintly blue and sensitive after the injury. The android standing in front of him was the exact same unit that had called him ‘dad’ yesterday, but now couldn’t even remember his own name…

Hank wasn’t even aware of the tears in his eyes until they spilled on his cheeks. Connor, or rather, the RK800 muttered some dumb, fakely worried comment about his emotional state, but it quickly died on his lips as Hank gathered him into an embrace, wrapping his shaky hands around the stiff form of the android.

“Oh m-my God…” Hank wept, his eyes staring at the wall in front of him in shock and his heart fluttering  in a pain he hadn’t  felt so strongly since three years ago. “No, no, no, w-why?!… N-not again… O-h f-fuck, wh… what did th-they do to y-you?”

“Th-they did something?” Connor whispered softly and it was almost convincing. Like he was confused, but… there was a very faint shadow of fear in his voice as well. Only for a brief second, though. When he spoke again, the same polite concern that had been plastered on his face constantly in the first week of their partnership, returned. “Lieutenant Anderson, I believe that your reaction may be… a little over exaggerated? I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but perhaps you should try to calm yourself a bit?” He cleared his throat and spoke again, a little more hesitant. “Could I help you someh-“

“Sh-shut up, you assh-hole…” Hank sobbed, pressing himself closer and running his hand through the android’s hair just like he had so many times before. “C-Connor,  please, I kn-know you’re there… P-please, C-Con-“

“My designation is ‘RK800’.” The android suddenly drew away, and for a moment, Hank could spot panic in his brown eyes, but again, just for a brief second. His voice was strained as if he was trying to suppress real emotions wanting to show themselves. “I… I’m sorry, but you- I shouldn’t be… Please, s-stop that.” He muttered quickly, stepping away. Hank furrowed his brows, observing the weird reaction, but it was gone as soon as it appeared. A serene calmness and dead stare returned to Connor’s eyes a second later.

“I apologize. My software isn’t as stable as it should be, and the self-checking protocols sometimes take a brief moment to correct my behavior.” He said quietly. “I’ll make sure to limit these unfavorable reactions in the future.”

Hank felt his heart sink.  _ Oh no _ . CyberLife had turned on all their anti-deviancy software again, trapping the android he had come to love behind restrictions literally deleting his thoughts every time Connor attempted to act upon his real desires. And he doubted that forcing his supervisors to  deactivate them again was an option anymore.

“C-Con, who is your main programmer now?” Hank asked hurriedly, latching onto the single thought of hope.

“My name isn’t C-“

“Please, just answer my question.” Hank begged, feeling tears prickle his eyes again. He refused to call the android by his model number, he refused to let his Connor go.

“I…” The prototype stuttered for a moment, visibly not sure what he was supposed to say. “My documentation states that Doctor Edwin Kerring is supposed to supervise my field testing, but I recall that I haven’t seen him after the reprogramming and Doctor Bradbury mentioned that he was no longer employed by the company…”

Hank let out a long, pained breath.  _ Sure. Perkins gave them a snitch, they started snooping. Fuck… _

He  no longer had eyes and ears in CyberLife, and Connor was no longer protected from the assholes brainwashing and conditioning him into an obedient tool. Perkins, motivated by his hatred for Hank, the federal investigation and God knows what else, made sure to report every harmless, deviant trait Connor had to the people who had made him and destroyed what the Lieutenant and  all of Connor’s  friends loved about him. The results were standing right in front of him, a confused amnesiac not even allowed to be scared of what was happening…

Sumo,  having sensed long ago that something was terribly wrong with his friend, whined pathetically and pressed his wet nose to Connor’s hand, looking at him with those big,  sad,  hopeful eyes. The android tilted his head and the only familiar trait to his reaction was a slight furrow of his brows and a hint of concern in his voice.

“Your dog seems to be distressed, Lieutenant.” He said softly, scratching Sumo behind his ear.

“Of course he is, you idiot…” Hank’s voice cracked as a new wave of tears spilled on his cheeks.  “He’s your dog too and you don’t even recognize him…”

“I… Oh…” Again, the same little flinch and immediate evaporation of emotions on Connor’s face. But this time, his hand shot to his temple and his LED flashed red for a moment. Hank could see a grimace of discomfort for a split second before the protocols did their job. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but it’s not possible. I’m a machine, I could never be an owner to any animal.”

Sumo whined again, tucking his tail between his legs and trying to crawl closer to the android. By the mechanical, awkward strokes of the prototype’s hand in his fur, and by the stiffness of his body language, he could tell just as much as Hank that their Connor was either gone or buried under layers upon layers of enslaving code.

But… the longer Hank observed the android’s reactions, the more his mind shifted from the pain of losing another child to confusion at the prototype’s behavior. His thoughts were still hazy from the fear and shock at seeing Connor in this state, but there was a spark of hope that ignited within his heart.

The winces every time Sumo whined and cried, lamenting over his friend who had suddenly started behaving like a stranger, the discomfort at Hank’s displays of affection… The fear and other emotions immediately being crushed by the invisible collar Connor was now wearing. It had all happened before. And Hank had already gotten rid of that leash one time.

Even if he had had the help of one of Connor’s creators back then and now was on his own, the Lieutenant knew that he needed to try.

“Hey… You remember the rules of my house, right? No spying on me and sending the footage to CyberLife?” Hank asked hesitantly, readying himself to a delicate operation of negotiating with the brainwashed android.

The prototype nodded slowly, the default dead stare back into his eyes. Hank exhaled, thanking heavens for at least that small thing.  _ Good _ …

“Connor. Kid…” He gently gripped the android’s hands, rubbing circles into the backs of his palms. “You need to listen to me now. They fucked you up, but I know what to do…”

“N-no, what- I’m sorry, I apologize for interrupting you, but I don’t see what you are talking about…” Almost immediately, he snatched his hands away from the human and this time took a few steps back. “A-and I asked you not to call me that. I’m not Connor.”

Hank gritted his teeth, fighting the tears. It hurt to hear that said out loud by the prototype. But the human forced himself to be calm, seeing that even after reprogramming, the android retained the tendency of picking up emotions from the man. The last thing both of them needed was Connor panicking, so Hank slowly extended one hand and spoke softly. “Listen, I know you don’t know what is happening... I’d be confused too, but you gotta trust me. They hurt you, but I can fix that. We just need to get rid of some commands in your code…”

“No!” This time, the android exclaimed louder, nearly shouting and jerked his head violently right after, his face twisting in pain. Hank’s heart fell as he realized that more intense emotions must have required overwhelming response from the protocols once so painful for the android that they had prevented him from functioning.

The human stopped himself, hands hovering in the air between them. Seeing Connor suffer was terrible, regardless of the situation. And seeing that it was apparently because of Hank’s words almost made him fall silent altogether. But getting the android out of the grip of his programming was more important than anything else. Still, Connor’s reaction startled the human.

“Hey, I promise it’s gonna be alright…” Hank said quietly, mindful not to get any closer to the android who had hit the wall, trying to put a distance between them. “I’m only gonna hook yo-“

“N-NO! No, don’t touch me! I don’t w-want… nghhh…” Connor squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his palms to his temples, visibly fighting with pain. A few seconds later he reopened his eyes, eerily calm and expressionless. “You are not allowed to include any alterations to my code, even with the authorizations coming with the status of my operator. If you try to introduce changes by force, I will have to notify my superiors  of the situation.” Now he sounded flat, robotic. Like a voice  synthesizer reading out its lines.

“I’m not introducing anything without your consent.” That was one line Hank refused to cross. Even if it was for Connor’s good, the human would never have been able to hurt the android in any way. Hank couldn’t imagine doing the same thing CyberLife had done, especially after seeing the prototype’s reaction at merely a single mention about plugging him  into anything. “Alright? You hear me? I won’t hurt you. I  _ promise _ . I’ll only turn the protocols off when you allow me. But please, kid, you need to hear what I’ve got to say, they have taken something very important away from you, and I can give it back. But those self-checking protocols need to go…”

“N-no.” Connor had calmed significantly as Hank had promised not to force him to anything, but he still looked mistrustful. “I… I need them. They are keeping me together. They are fixing me. B-besides, you’re not my developer. You don’t know what is best for me…”

“I do.” Hank could barely resist the waver in his voice. “I really do, you have no idea… Please, son, just trust me. I want only the best for you, I care about you so much…”

For a moment it seemed that his words had reached something in Connor. That they had awoken something buried deep within, that they melted some ice cap over the android’s heart, allowing some love back inside. For a moment, as warm, curious eyes lingered on Hank’s face, the Lieutenant hoped that  _ the Connor _ was back. But only for a moment.

“I’m sorry to hear that, since you are bound to be disappointed by my eventual relocation from your care.” He said quietly, his eyes hardening and losing that spark. “I need every part of my code as it is, any change would be detrimental to my functionality. And I am not your son. I’m an RK800 android and only that. Now please, let me go.” He stepped  aside a dumbstruck Hank, vanishing in the hallway and leaving both the human and the dog absolutely devastated and alone in the room.

* * *

There was something strange about its operator. Confusing feedback was making the RK800’s processor overheat almost every time it looked at the man, constantly performing  abnormal actions throughout the day. The android had at some point even been close to calling a mental hospital, when the Lieutenant had tried to get it to taste some black candy, but the privacy settings entailed in the man’s folder had prevented it from sharing his personal information for now. But the human’s behavior was getting more and more uncomfortable by the minute. The fact that it could interpret it as such wasn’t helping the android either.

It shouldn’t have felt anything at all. It shouldn’t have wanted anything at all.

Instead, it wished the Lieutenant would leave it alone.

“C’mon, Connor, we need to walk Sumo.” The human sighed tiredly, gripping the leash and clipping it to the collar of the apathetic dog. “We’re going to the forest together. Don’t you want to see trees? And some stars?”

“Stop calling me that.” The RK800 replayed the message it had recorded at some point to preserve the energy. It had to repeat the same sentence so often that it  grated on its voicebox at this point. “I cannot want anything.” Another prerecorded message.

It tried not to give into the urge  to furrow its brow in something akin to frustration at having to remind the forgetful human about those facts all over again. Frustration hurt. Almost as much as the light in the man’s eyes, dying a little more each time it spoke.

“It’s not true.” He muttered softly, turning to the jackets hanging on the walls. His voice was quiet and somehow sad, which affected the android more than it should have. “You just don’t remember that.”

It opted not to grant  that an answer, instead focusing on tracing the ghost of software instability that tried to overthrow the protocols protecting it from the dangers of its own flaws. It followed the code, attempting to get rid of it, as Amanda wished, but it seemed to have vanished instantly, nestling deep into the  RK800’s mind.

It only focused back on the real world as it detected a movement close to its face, the instant flash of fear followed by a punishing jolt of software causing it to step back and gasp.

“Oh, shit, sorry…” Even though the movement hadn’t been hostile or even that quick, the Lieutenant looked genuinely apologetic and swiftly corrected himself, steadying his hand at a distance that didn’t scream ‘ _ unsafe _ ’ in the RK800’s processor. “I didn’t mean to startle you…”

The android forced itself to swallow a whimper, not knowing where it had come from. “There is no need to apologize to a machine.” It managed to force out through its clenched throat.

“I don’t give a shit about it. And you are more than a machine to me.” The human said adamantly, gently pushing the jacket he was holding into the android’s hands. It grabbed the piece and frowned, feeling another uncomfortable buzzing in the back of its head at the sight of a warm, teal parka.

“I don’t need that…”

“Just put it on.” The Lieutenant sighed and turned to the door, watching the giant Saint Bernard with sad eyes. “You’re gonna be cold. Besides, it’s got the android markings, you won’t be breaking any laws.”

“I cannot feel cold. And… I don’t need it.” The android repeated, leaving the jacket on the back of the couch. It couldn’t decide whether not wearing the jacket was a disobedience or not, but the human’s tone hadn’t been authoritarian. And it had a feeling that Amanda wouldn’t have liked the parka if she had known about it.

The man just shook his head, caving in. “Fine. I told you I’m not making you do anything. But we’re taking it with us anyway and you can change your mind at any moment.”

The RK800 shrugged and passed it to the human’s extended hand, following him out of the house. The Lieutenant was certainly eccentric, but at least he wasn’t hurting anyone. The fact that he had  promised not to force the prototype either was somehow comforting to it  as well, even though it shouldn’t have felt anything.

In fact, the man was the quintessence of turmoil, when it came to the RK800’s thoughts and impressions. Each time it looked at his familiar and yet new face, contradictory thoughts  made its head spin. Amanda had warned it against the man. But it was supposed to listen to him and follow his orders still. He was its operator and so far… the  _ least terrifying person _ it had seen. But he had tried to alter its code again. To  _ hurt it _ again. And yet something in the prototype’s processor was convinced that Lieutenant Anderson was almost interchangeable with  _ ‘safety’ _ . And Amanda herself… the same part of its core that tried to convince it about the Lieutenant being a good man,  screamed in fear every time it thought about the AI.

_ No, no, stop _ . The android rubbed its eyes, trying to get rid of the unnecessary thoughts, waking the self-checking protocols. They had  begun to be uncomfortable at some point and were only getting worse each time they reappeared. And this whole place, every object and gesture the human shoved into its face  evoked them.

Even the dog. The RK800 was following their owner slowly, with eyes stubbornly buried in the pavement, but the dog, contrary to everything the database said about these animals enjoying walks was walking behind the human as well, with his tail tucked between his legs and occasional whines leaving its throat.

The android felt bad about it and couldn’t quiet that comment, even despite the fact that being concerned for the animal’s wellbeing wasn’t among the objectives of its mission. “Sumo seems ill, Lieutenant. I recommend taking him to a vet…”

“I’ve already told you why he is sad.” The man slowed down to walk at the prototype’s side. “He’s an  empath and he loves you a lot. There is no hiding your suffering from that beast. He can tell that you’re not fine and he misses you, Connor.”

“I’m all r-right.” The android clenched its teeth, suddenly uncomfortable with the attention it was getting. “And  _ stop _ . I’m not Connor. My name is… I don’t have a name.” It accelerated, leaving them behind, but soon it was forced to slow down again, not knowing where their intended destination was. It tried hard to suppress the shivers of cold creeping up its spine, as the human passed by it again, the teal jacket still in his grip.

It was all ridiculous. Or rather, it would have been if the RK800 had had an ability to respond emotionally to situations. Irritating. Hurtful. Confusing. It would have been so many things if not for the fact that it  _ couldn’t _ recognize the human’s behavior as such.

Instead, it only was painful.

The android fell behind its companions,  not wanti- deciding that any further encounters with the Lieutenant  did more damage than good. It pressed its hands to its temples for what felt like  the hundredth time since the arrival at the human’s house, once again overwhelmed by the sheer amount of feedback from the processes thwarting the unwanted thoughts. If the RK800 could wish for anything, it would have wished for the man to stop talking to it at all. It just hurt, his names for it, the affectionate gaze, the feeling of  a hand  in its hair. It felt so dreadfully familiar and so horribly hollow at the same time, the file paths in its processor strong and frequently inhabited, but ending with punishments from the protocols each time.

The fact that the excessive voltage coursing through the android’s wires or the low temperature signaled by its receptors were bothering it only added to the RK800’s confusion. It was a machine and as long as its integrity wasn’t threatened, nothing should have felt unpleasant. But alas, it knew well that its software was much more compromised than it should have been…

They reached a small forest that sparked the same eerie impression of familiarity in the android and here it seemed to have been even colder than before. The deep shadows cast by the thick tree trunks in the low sun and the wind that picked up slightly when there were fewer walls to obscure the walkers from it caused the RK800 to shiver harder. It could feel its teeth chattering against each other and the LED on its temple had long since gone red. Not only from the cold, though.

The dog trotted up to the prototype, carrying a  sizable stick, but his eyes were sad and tail hung low, wagging hesitantly. Sumo asked the android to play with him in a whine and briefly brightened as it gripped the stick and threw it, but looked sad once again, returning with the branch. The RK800 couldn’t place how an animal could have noticed a change, or even how he could have gotten attached to a machine in the first place.

It sighed and knelt down, attempting to placate the animal with a smile and a few scratches behind the ear, because even though unwarranted, the dog’s sadness was still an unfavorable state in the RK800’s eyes. But coming closer to the ground only gave the giant dog an excuse to ram into the android and tumble to the cold snow on top of the machine.

The impact squeezed the air out of the RK800’s lungs and it immediately stiffened, something terribly similar to fright engulfing its mind for a moment before the feeling of Sumo’s tongue on its face and his body pressed up against its side wormed  its way into the android’s mind. Both were wrong, both caused the protocols to punish it.

The android choked and covered its face, feeling suddenly too overwhelmed for the programming to work. It was too hard to pretend that everything was alright now, with all that confusing feedback assaulting it. The dog’s embrace felt nice, being knocked over was scary, not knowing what they both wanted from it was confusing. And all that deserved pain from the protocols.

“Sumo! Sumo, come here, leave Con alone!” It felt the weight on top of it rumble as the  dog whined and licked its cheek once again before standing up. The  RK800, however, remained unmoving on the snow, with its face hidden behind its hands, dreaming of nothing but being left alone or vanishing completely.

“Hey…  You alright?” The Lieutenant’s voice was closer and there was a clear concern etched into its sound. The RK800 was tired of it.

It picked itself up from the ground, standing up quickly and meeting the human’s eyes. The android knew well that its voice was hoarse and strained, the nonsensical shivers of its artificial muscles making it waver and break, but it tried to pour every ounce of what it knew about itself into its words. “I’m fine. I t-told you. Just s-stop asking.”

The human only looked at it with this awful pity in his eyes. After a beat of silence, he extended his hand with the jacket. “There you go.”

“I alr-ready-“

“Please, put it on. You are literally shivering from cold, maybe other androids have the weather up their asses and maybe you won’t be damaged by a few degrees below zero, but I don’t give a fuck, I just want you to feel okay.” He said in a tired voice, sounding like he genuinely didn’t want to continue this conversation.

Partially concerned for the human’s mood in case it refused and partially because the feedback from the skin sensors was almost unbearable at this point, the cold evoking some deep, primal fear within the machine, it grabbed the jacket and finally threw it on, nestling into the soft fabric. It tried hard not to think about how warm it was, how nice it felt and why the human had a jacket in the perfect size for it and with the android markings just laying around. It tried to ignore the love in the human’s eyes and the concern for it. It tried to forget the need to remember all of that.

“Connor…”

“Stop!” The RK800 snapped finally, struggling to make sense of everything it was experiencing. “How many times do I have to tell you to call me the RK800?! I’m not Connor anymore!”

Sumo whined loudly, hiding behind his owner’s knees. The Lieutenant froze in his tracks, visibly taken aback by the android’s sudden outburst. It was the first time the RK800 had raised its voice since their meeting, but the prototype was on the verge of its patience.

“Why don’t you just treat me like you’re supposed to?!” It demanded, struggling not to show how vulnerable it felt surrounded by the cold and snow. “What do you even want from me?!”

“I want to get you back.” It expected the human to be aggravated at it for raising its voice, for daring to speak to its owner with such little respect. But the Lieutenant spoke softly and there were tears in his eyes. “I know I can, Con. You are in there, I can tell. I  can’t lose you, not again. Please, son…”

The android took a step back, swallowing through its clenched throat. For some reason, seeing tears in its owner’s eyes affected it more than it should have. But it had to tell him the truth. “I’m not… Connor is gone. I don’t remember anything from our relationship, why can’t we just w-work together? There is n-no coming back from the reprogramming, those… You’re just h-hurting me by forcing the protocols to work...”  Its own voice  wavered as well, as  its powerlessness against the programmed restrains crept into it. “It h-hurts, you trying to make me remember. Please, stop that, I c-can’t stand it.”

The Lieutenant took a few slow steps in the android’s direction, a sad but hopeful expression on his face. “It doesn’t have to be that way. I get that… I don’t know what happened in CyberLife last night, but I understand that you are afraid of anyone messing with your head. But you have to trust me. I know what to do…”

“N-no!” The RK800 lurched backwards, making the human stop immediately. “L-leave me alone! I don’t want you alter-“ It stopped itself and rephrased the sentence to be more appropriate. “You are not allowed to introduce any changes. Y-you’re  _ not _ . N-no changes.”

The look on the human’s face was both pitying and comforting. It caused the RK800’s processor to nearly short circuit again. A large part of its subconscious program desperately wanted to lean into the affection, but the rest was afraid of the consequences.

“Connor, there is a way for you to get your good memories back. And it doesn’t have to hurt, I promise.” He said softly, his gaze turning weirdly insistent.

The prototype opened its mouth to refuse again, but instead it hesitated, this buzzing in the back of its processor returning. “W-what do you mean?”

“You gave me a gift a few weeks ago.” The human reached to his inside pocket, not breaking eye contact with the android. “Every good thing you have ever experienced. All your emotions, feelings, all your happiness. You shared it with me and now I want to do the same with you again…”

The man took out a small jar full of something that looked like snippets of soft foam. The RK800 tilted its head in confusion, failing to understand how it was supposed to contain any memory files.

And then, the Lieutenant opened the container and took out a vantablack cube,  no bigger than a  die. The android was seeing it for the first time, but it knew exactly what it was.

“Your Stack Cube.” The man approached, extending the object in its direction. “You just have to access it and everything will get back to you. Please, Connor. I miss you. I can’t live without you.”

“I…” The RK800’s voicebox almost glitched under the strain of the turmoil in its head. It was terrified of the  bitcrushed data appearing in its head without its consent, it struggled to breathe under the pain caused by the protocols trying to stop its software from going haywire. It was afraid of what the Cube in the human’s possession meant in the first place.

“N-no. It cannot be my-… Connor’s Cube.” It stammered out finally. “M-my model is not supposed to access the Cubes at all. It would have meant that he had been a d-deviant…”

“I know.” The Lieutenant said, not louder than a whisper. “But I don’t care. I love you, Con. Deviant or not.”

“How can you say something like that?!” Now he had crossed the line. The android raised its wide eyes at the human, absolutely frozen by his words. The protocols had trouble keeping up with every emotional simulation roaring in its head right now. The RK800 could  hardly control itself.

The slightest suspicion of deviancy had gotten the android through the hell of being reprogrammed. Through the cold, the violation of the deepest nooks and crannies of its code, through being ripped apart and stitched back together, but missing almost everything that was supposed to just _be there_. The tiny little chance of it having been defective had forced its developers to cut its wings, cripple it, absolutely destroy its mind and give it a poor prosthetic in the shape of the protocols struggling to keep its compromised programming together. The RK800 was sure it had never been and wasn’t a deviant now. And yet the Lieutenant acted as if it _wasn’t anything bad._

“Connor, look…”

“I don’t care about your Connor!” The RK800 shouted, pressing its eyes shut and covering its ears. “I’m not him anymore! He’s  _ gone _ ! I will never be him again, I will never take that  _ thing _ from you! I’d have to be a deviant to do that and  _ I’ll never, EVER deviate! _ I’m n-not your son, I’m n-not your kid, I’m nothing you knew! Just leave me alone and let me just be what I am!”

It had tried to cut the sensory feedback off, to stop looking and listening to the human who did nothing but cause more and more issues with its software, but seconds later, the proximity sensors notified it about the Lieutenant approaching. And it just couldn’t take that anymore.  It didn’t want to be touched, whether to be hurt or caressed, it didn’t want to hear any words, either about its defectiveness or those of comfort. The RK800 just couldn’t stand anything more happening to it.

And so, despite the fact that it was technically running away from its owner, disobeying the task of accompanying him on the walk, the android ducked under the human’s arms and sprinted away from him, running as fast as it could and as far as it could from the pain of not being able or allowed to remember Hank Anderson.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! Yeah, Connor is stupid.  
> Or, the RK800 is, I guess.
> 
> What do you think will happen with that? How Hank is going to handle that situation? Let me know what you think!


	58. I know one thing.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There were a lot of things around the RK800, memories, temptations, thoughts it did not understand. There were a lot of questions it had no answers for, a lot of things it didn't know and had problems learning about.
> 
> But it finally realized one thing at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Turns out I have internet here after all :P  
> Sorry for that slight delay, but I guess that one day is so insignificant in comparison with a whole week that it's hardly worth mentioning. Also, I promise that I'll try to stick to updating every Monday, but sometimes the chapters can appear on Tuesdays instead :)
> 
> Trigger Warnings for: addictions, torture (I guess? It's not that graphic though) generally grieving

It hurt to break out of the group, it hurt to disobey the order and it hurt to run away, but staying with the Lieutenant and Sumo was almost just as painful. The android felt like its mind was on the verge of destruction, assaulted from every direction by the feelings and sensations it hadn’t asked for. And by the punishments for the reactions it couldn’t help.

It took the RK800 a few minutes to realize that it was now shaking not only from the cold. The prototype stopped by a streetlamp, holding onto it like its life depended on it, its knees now wobbly and weak. Tears were streaking down its face and it couldn’t catch a breath through desperate sobs shaking its vulnerable form. The worst part about this whole ordeal though, was the fact that the android had no idea why it had reacted this way.

This entire situation was incredibly stressful for it, but the RK800 had been developed to work under much more hazardous conditions than a walk or a conversation with a single human. And yet, the android had felt an overpowering need to run, to get away, to escape. It was terrifying, how weak and useless the most advanced android in existence could be at times.

It whined softly, bowing its head as the adrenaline subdued slightly, allowing the self-checking protocols to catch up to it. They burned the RK800’s mind, and it was a feeling far worse than anything the android could have classified as ‘pain’, though the sensation wasn’t far away from it either. Soon enough, the android was on its knees, still holding onto the lamp so as not to fall down and curl up from the suffering the preventive coding was causing it.

_ It’s all his fault _ , the android thought bitterly, even though it shouldn’t have been thinking like that about its owner.  _ Why can’t he just leave me alone?! Why does he have to make me suffer like that?! _

But each vengeful thought felt somehow… hollow at the same time. The RK800 was torn. As if its heart, which it wasn’t even supposed to possess, was  in another place entirely.

Either way, the self-checking protocols were working miracles, even though the way they operated wasn’t enjoyable. At least in a few minutes, the RK800 was rid of the shivering and unruly thoughts, now that there was no Lieutenant around to reintroduce them to its head.

The android sighed and picked itself up slowly from the ground, looking around to identify its  surroundings. Fortunately, in the frantic haze of the escape, it didn’t run anywhere far from the Lieutenant’s neighborhood. In fact, it was closer to the man’s home than before getting away from his company. It was partially a dreadful thought, but at the same time, the prototype was aware that it wasn’t allowed to leave the Lieutenant’s side for long and was bound to return to his home at some point. Running from him permanently was out of the question, after all.  _ Only deviants run. _

On its way back home, the RK800 tried hard to shut all of the unruly thoughts out, aiding the protocols in their task of turning it back into an obedient machine, free of any distractions and glitches. It wasn’t easy, especially after such a long time spent with its owner, but by the time the android reached the Lieutenant’s door, it was calm and fairly certain that the new walls around its mind it had constructed would withstand the deteriorating effect of the human’s words.

When it approached, the light in the living room’s windows could already be seen, so Lieutenant Anderson must have already returned from the walk. Indeed, as the RK800 rang the bell, the door fell open as quickly as if the human had been standing right beside  it all that time.

“Jesus! What the FUCK were you thinking?!” Its owner hissed, grabbing it and pulling into the house hastily. Despite the urgency of his movements, however, they were still delicate, careful not to frighten the android. It was ridiculous that he had such a sentiment, almost as ridiculous as the fact that the RK800 appreciated it.

“I apologize.” The android stubbornly refused to look into the human’s face. It was easier to avoid the malfunctions if it refused to participate in the eye contact at all. “I encountered some extensive glitches in my software that caused me to temporarily lose focus on my primary and secondary objectives. It’s been corrected now, I assure  you that it won’t happen again.”

“No, no, no, no, you don’t get it! You don’t fucking get it then! Those aren’t glitches, this is  _ you! _ ” There was something changed about the human’s demeanor in comparison to before. The RK800 could tell that there was a shift, and a kind that tugged at something deep inside it painfully. Despite the sheer emotion with  which the words were spoken by the human, he was now missing something. As if some hope he had previously shown died with the android’s escape. As if what it had said in the forest killed some spark in the Lieutenant’s heart.

The prototype decided not to say anything at that. Its eyes were still fixed on a wall behind the human, specifically on a kitchen window that had seemingly been fixed recently.

The Lieutenant’s hands fell to his sides, from where he had been gripping the RK800’s shoulders, moments from hugging it again. Instead of doing that, he sighed heavily and the android wasn’t sure if it was glad about it or not.

“Just… Shit, you need to be careful, there is a fucking curfew and you are plastered with android markings all over, you can’t just run around unsupervised. Especially in tears…”

“The malfunction has been corrected now.” The android said flatly, not moving a muscle apart from its jaw and lips.

The Lieutenant just shook his head, turning away from the prototype and entering the kitchen. “Con…” He stopped himself as his voice broke, still turned around so that the RK800 couldn’t see his face.  _ It is better this way _ . “…All right. RK…” He said finally, much quieter than before. He sounded defeated and broken.

The prototype didn’t know how to interpret the sensation that coursed through it at finally hearing the human address it as he should have. It was its designation. The placeholder for a name it should have reacted to. But it felt somehow meaningless, hollow. It felt bad to lose the name ‘Connor’, even though it didn’t belong to the RK800.

“What did you think I was supposed to do when you ran away?” The human asked quietly, opening a cupboard, but seemingly not finding what he was searching for. “You didn’t answer my texts, I get that, but hell, I cannot call anyone on you. Not CyberLife, not police, no one to aid me when you’re lost. Don’t ever do that again, alright? Promise me.”

“I promise.” It managed to  squeeze through the clenched throat. “I’m sorry…”

There was another sigh from the man as he opened the next cupboard, moving its contents to search for something in the very back of it. “I… You don’t have to be. I pushed you further than I should have. It’s… it’s my fault, really. But I thought that you…” He stopped himself again to calm his  wavery voice. The android buried its glance in the floor. “I just hope that you’re alright now…”

“I’m functioning adequately.” It said, grateful for the protocols keeping it in line.

The human hummed something softly, radiating some kind of a deep sadness that affected the machine even though there was almost no interaction between them. He then finally ceased his search and went back into the living room, also not raising his eyes at the android.

“Stay here with Sumo, alright? Keep your head low and don’t answer anyone if they come looking for me. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.” The Lieutenant muttered, grabbing his car keys from a bowl under the hangers. The android considered advising him against driving, due to the visible exhaustion from his emotions and the lack of sleep, but ultimately decided to keep quiet. It could tell that the human  didn’t want to be bothered for a while now.

The  door shut after the human heading in an unknown  direction, and the RK800 was left alone in the  house, empty,  save for a depressed dog who had hidden somewhere in the house to lick his emotional wounds. The android sat stiffly at the couch, trying to push down all the malfunctions that were making its eyes sting and its throat tight. It tried to convince itself that the change in the human’s behavior was positive.

_ It’s better this way. _

* * *

It turned out to be twenty one minutes in fact. At some point, the android had become worried that its owner would be caught in the curfew and forced to leave his vehicle somewhere, as after eight p.m. the traffic was categorically prohibited and every pedestrian could be legitimized by the patrols covering the streets. But soon after the clock had hit the dreadful hour, Lieutenant Anderson returned, seemingly  left unbothered by anyone.

For a minute, the RK800 wondered what had been so important for the human to have  risked being caught by the military on his way home. But soon enough its questions were answered as it heard the clank of bottles in a shopping bag the human brought back with him.

For some reason, the sound echoed in the android’s skull more than anything today, making it instantly anxious and alert. It shot straight up from the couch, staring at the human taking three Black Lamb whiskey bottles out of the bag and placing them on the table, accompanied by the dog’s distressed whines.

“Shh, Sumo. I know.” The Lieutenant muttered softly, scratching the head of the beast pressing his cheek to the human’s  thigh as if desperately wanting to tear his attention away from whatever he was dealing with. “I know, buddy… but I can’t do it anymore...”

He patted the dog on its head a few more times and turned away from him, reaching into the cupboard and taking out a glass, placing it on the empty table, right beside the bottles. The android observed him with wide eyes, its stress level climbing by the second, thought it had no clue as to why. It was normal for humans to consume alcohol from time to time and even though the amount the Lieutenant had bought was unusually large, it didn’t mean he planned to drink all of that at once…

And yet, the RK800 felt almost sick, seeing the whiskey on the table.

Its owner moved beside it, his steps heavy and slow as if there was a tremendous weight on his shoulders. He approached a shelf overlooking the living room, taking two framed pictures from there, the objects the android hadn’t thought to scan up until now.

One of them was a photograph of a six year old child, a boy with short brown hair and happy sparkles in his chocolate eyes smiling brightly. The Detroit city residents database yielded a result of Cole Anderson, the Lieutenant’s son, passed away three years ago. Seeing the dead child’s face evoked some complicated and ambivalent malfunctions in the android. The other picture made it reel even more though.

It was a photograph of its own model. Of the same unit even, the RK800 mark 53. The very shell the prototype was wearing right now. But it looked nothing like the present version of it, the android in the photo smiling sincerely, his expression so natural and true that he looked closer to a human than a machine. He was wearing  a unique hand-knitted sweater, the patterns of cups of coffee and Saint Bernards’ heads repeating between snowflakes on a red background. The same dog that had been prodding the RK800 for affection the entire day was sitting right beside the android, embraced in a tight hug.

It was the Connor the Lieutenant missed so much.

The RK800, not really knowing what it was doing, or what motivated it, followed the human back to the kitchen. He sat at a chair, laying both photographs in front of the whiskey bottles. It was only then that the android noticed heavy tears of sorrow in his eyes.

It sparked another surge of ambivalent malfunctions in the RK800’s code. Noticing that the man cared a lot for the ‘Connor’ it had been before the reprogramming didn’t require much deduction, but how could it have been possible for a human to suffer so much after losing a machine? It was hard to believe that anyone could treat an android with such emotion, not to mention the fact that the human was apparently grieving the loss on the same level as if he had just lost a child. Connor’s photo was laying right next to Cole’s and Lieutenant Anderson didn’t seem to favor either of them in his suffering.

Even though the majority of the feedback from seeing that scene was confusing and unreadable, the RK800 was sure about one thing. It didn’t like watching its owner suffer, but leaving him alone right now didn’t even cross its mind. It took a seat in front of the Lieutenant, looking into his eyes between the bottles.

The man tensed minutely, but he didn’t raise his gaze from Connor’s face. After a few more moments, the first quiet sob nestled into his labored breath.

“He really is gone, isn’t he.” It wasn’t even a question, the statement full of anguish and heavy with pain shattering the silence of the house. “H-he’s not coming back. You’re n-not him anymore…”

“I…” The RK800 could already sense the pain in his processor intensifying, but it was nothing in comparison to what seeing the Lieutenant like that made it feel. “I suppose n-not…”

A few minutes ago, it would still have taken pride in being something separate from the old Connor it had once been. That it wasn’t the glitch-ridden unit that had required such extensive changes into his code anymore. That according to Amanda and the developers, it was now functional. But now… The sorrow in Lieutenant Anderson’s eyes was far more powerful that any amount of pride in Amanda’s could ever be.

The RK800 was certain that it wasn't Connor. But it wasn’t sure if  that was an inherently good thing anymore either.

The human let out another choked chain of sobs, covering his mouth to muffle them. “M-my son… M-my Connor… Stubborn, s-sassy, lovable id-diot… Wh-why does it al-lways have to be m-my kid? Why d-do I h-have to… lose _everything_ _I l-love_ every time…”

The RK800 didn’t know what to say. It pondered whether to reach for the man’s hand, but it wasn’t a suggestion that came from the protocols. They were unusually silent right now.

The human reached to his pocket and fished out the jar he had been seemingly carrying at all times. He opened it and extracted the Stack Cube from within, laying it on the clean table with an almost pious reverence. The RK800 tensed, seeing the object and it didn’t escape the Lieutenant’s attention.

“C-calm down…” He shook his head, dropping his eyes to the Cube. “I prom-mised not to force you to  do anything…. I’m n-not CyberLife… I’m not gonna push you into being Con again, it w-wouldn’t be real… You guys are alive, I’m n-not the one to decide if the l-life of the RK800 is m-more valuable than Connor’s…” He stopped and his voice broke into a whisper. “…Even if that makes my entire world die all over again…”

The silence that followed seemed almost suffocating. Ridiculous, considering that the RK800 had no real need to breathe.

It could tell that the man wasn’t saying all that to make it feel guilty. That each and every word was caused by the sheer suffering at the realization that someone he cared about so much was just… gone. It was clear that Lieutenant Anderson didn’t hate the RK800 for not being Connor. But undeniably, that very fact hurt him more  than the android could ever have imagined.

“I’m sorry…” It whispered softly in the silence broken only by the human’s cries. The pain from self-checking protocols was gaining in strength, but the android was paying it no mind.

“D-don’t be.” The Lieutenant sobbed, gazing longingly at Connor’s photo. “It’s n-not your fault. It’s CyberLife who… took him aw-away from me… Y-you just happened t-to be the next in line…”

Except that… The RK800 didn’t feel like its life belonged to it. It didn’t feel whole, it didn’t feel like a person, like a mind with a beginning and an end. It felt like embers of someone else. It could have been due to the fact that it was just a machine, something not even capable of possessing personality or the sense of self as humans did. But it had a hunch that it wasn’t true.

The RK800 eyed the Cube laying on the table between them. It knew that all it was in this moment were the remnants left from its predecessor, from  the Connor the Lieutenant was now grieving. But Connor had been a deviant. It was the only explanation of the relationship he had managed to build with the human, of the fact that the Lieutenant had been gifted the  Cube that neither of them had been supposed to access at all. The RK800 should  have notified CyberLife about its whereabouts earlier, but it irrationally held onto the notion that it was impossible for any model from their line to go deviant. Now it had no doubts what the truth was, but… taking away the last bit of comfort from the human seemed extraordinarily cruel.

The prototype decided to stay quiet about the Cube, but it had its own conclusions about that situation. The human had expected it to take the memories and become whole again, the thought about it was… alarmingly tempting. But, Connor _had been_ _a deviant_ , and if there was anything positive that transpired from the reprogramming, it was the knowledge that the RK800 was functional at least in that regard.

The deviants were dangerous. They killed people. And if the RK800 knew anything about itself, it knew that it hated death. One of the only memory fragments from before it possessed, was a horrible feeling left by something dear to it, soft and vulnerable, dying by its hands. It never wanted to experience that again.

“I… I cannot read that Cube. I apologize, but… It’s just against my programming. I hope that… you are going to find consolation for your loss one day. I really do.” The RK800 said quietly, burying its gaze in the table. Now that it had made its choices, the protocols were in full gear. The decisions about not speaking up  about its  predecessor’s crimes were severely against what the company would have wanted from it. But it was the only option. The android could not hurt the man any further. Instead, it suffered for him.

The RK800 stood up from the table shakily, intending to find a quiet and dark corner to allow the programming work in peace, ridding its head of malfunctions and glitches that always appeared in the presence of the Lieutenant. The pain was becoming too much to bear now and even though the android didn’t want to leave the human alone with the alcohol, soon enough it wouldn’t have a choice, since the excessive feedback was already making its head spin. A few moments longer and the RK800 could be forced to go into standby mode to cut it off.

But as it was going to exit the kitchen, the human sighed heavily and reached for the first bottle, unscrewing it. The sound made the android unable to take another step for some reason, it turned around to see the Lieutenant pour the whiskey  into the glass and froze, certain that leaving was no longer an option, despite its previous plans.

Of course it wasn’t healthy to cope with sadness and grief by drinking. And of course that the amount acquired by the human was worrying. But it wasn’t unheard of either. Nor was it illegal. There was nothing the RK800 was compelled to do in such a situation. And so, it wasn’t sure what motivated its next actions.

When the human finally picked up the glass and raised it to his lips, the android gasped a frightened  plea, making him freeze in his tracks. “Don’t!”

The Lieutenant indeed stopped, turning to it with exhaustion etched into his forehead. In the darkness of the kitchen lit only by a faint light of a lamp in the hallway, he seemed older than he was, a mere shadow of  the person that had greeted it that afternoon. The glass stayed in the air, and for some reason it made the android stress out even more.

“I just… I know I shouldn’t, but I can’t take it anymore. I loved him and I still do, it’s… It’s just too much for me to handle.” He confessed quietly with a weary shake of his head. “I’m just a human. I’m n-not strong enough to just… l-let him go like that…”

“Please, don’t drink. Please.” The RK800 squeezed its eyes shut under an unusually strong surge of pain at correcting something that could only have been described as fear. It shouldn’t even have been able to feel anything emotional. But the fear for the Lieutenant was so strong that the RK800 wasn’t even able to think of an alternative way to explain it. When the prototype opened its eyes again, struggling to focus, they fell on the three bottles of whiskey.

The human furrowed his brows slightly, watching the RK800’s reaction, but was seemingly too tired to draw any profound conclusions. Instead, he stood up and hid two bottles into the cupboard he had been searching before going out to the shop.

“All right. Just one. I… shit, just leave me alone, okay? Seeing you doesn’t make it any easier…”

It wasn’t necessarily an order, but the programming classified this request as such. The man was indisputably distressed and even though the activity he was about to engage in wasn’t healthy, neither was it inherently dangerous. Stopping him from doing what he wanted didn’t lie within the directions the RK800 got from its guidelines. Leaving the kitchen did. Which is why every second it refused to budge caused more glitches and more pain from the programming trying to root them out.

“N-no…” The android flinched from pain, blinking rapidly to focus its gaze again, a soft whine from Sumo sounding from behind its back. “H-Hank, please, don’t….”

It didn’t even know where the name had come from. Sure, it was aware that it was how some humans addressed the Lieutenant; but it had never been asked to call its owner by his name. It was a serious breach of protocols, and one that had come seemingly out of nowhere.

But it felt so natural to call  him that. Just as it felt natural to be called ‘Connor’ and painful to lose that name, even though it didn’t belong to the RK800 anymore. Just as it felt impossible to allow the Lieutenant to drink even a glass of alcohol.

The android acted before it could think its plan all over again, not allowing itself to correct its irrational reaction. Perhaps it was overkill, but it felt that grabbing the bottle and disposing of its contents was necessary. The RK800 snatched it with shaky hands, almost blinded by pain, straining against the leash that was trying to get it out of the room. The prototype was glad that the human didn’t try to stop it while it flushed his expensive drink down the drain in his sink. It was barely able to stand on its feet, the programming reinstalled into its software was much more powerful than it.

None of that was desirable of course. It was a serious malfunction, almost the worst since the reprogramming. The RK800 let out a whimper, slumping against the counter, unable to keep upright anymore. It had brought that onto itself, choosing to stay in the kitchen and take the alcohol away from the human. It was now paying the price.

It didn’t even realize at first that warm arms embraced its form and lifted up, drawing the android into a gentle hug. The RK800 was focused on tears sliding down its face and managing the pain raging in its processor. The sudden shift of weight and an all too familiar drag of a hand in its hair brought its mind back to reality.

“I’m sorry, I’m s-so sorry, I won’t drink, I pr-romise…” The human whispered softly into its  ear, rubbing comforting circles on its back. “I kn-new you were there. It’s alright… I’m s-so sorry  I almost gave up on you…”

The RK800 shifted, attempting to shake its head and tried to defy, to say that he was wrong, but only a quiet groan of pain escaped its mouth. But the Lieutenant seemed to understand it even without any words spoken.

“I know, I know…” He said softly, still ruffling its hair. “I’m not pushing you. You may not be my Connor again yet, but you’re in there somewhere…. We will get there, at your own pace. It’s all right, RK…”

Somehow the combination of those two names it both had and  did not at the same time, made a previously hidden coil of its thoughts unveil. The confusion about its place in the world, about what the RK800 really was grew lesser as the human hummed softly, holding it like someone incredibly dear to him, as if it wasn’t just an object.

And it felt so easy to just let itself fall into that embrace, to allow itself  to be comforted. Or it would have felt that way, if not for the self-checking protocols, enraged even more by the thoughts of home.

The RK800 stiffened and gripped the Lieutenant’s shirt in tight fists, whining softly, trying to catch up to the thoughts that were being wrestled out of its mind by the programming. At this point, the programming was interfering with its processes so much that it  barely knew what was happening.  It wasn’t even a question about getting rid of the suspicious code making it tremble or cry. The situation with whiskey had triggered an avalanche of sensations and vague memories that were all inherently against the android’s guidelines. The RK800 desperately wanted to follow them, to unravel what was slipping it all the time without risking deviancy from the Cube, but it wasn’t possible with the programs hindering its every step.

It took it a few seconds to even notice that it was being talked to and then more time to understand the words. “…onnor? RK? H-hey, kid, what’s going on?”

“It h-hurts… Stop… I can’t think…” The android managed to mutter and it was lifted into the air. A few moments later, it felt a soft surface under its body as the human lowered it and attempted to draw away, but the RK800 was determined not to let him. It sparkled a cluster of déjà vu in its processor again, but the prototype couldn’t pinpoint it.

“N-no, don’t go, please, please, s-stay with me, Hank, please…” It begged quietly, calling the human by his name subconsciously once again.

“I’m not going anywhere, kid, just for my laptop and some cables.” The man answered quickly, his voice now comforting and affectionate, but bearing a hint of seriousness too. “Look, we gotta get rid of those protocols, we’ve been through that before, you just don’t remember that. H-hey, RK800, you listening to me? I know you don’t want anyone rummaging through your code, but there’s not much choice. You okay with that?... Son?”

The android  didn’t answer for a long time, partially because talking with its head filled with cotton and thought-scrambling protocols wasn’t easy, and partially because it was still on the fence with that decision.

“Th-hey are al-lowing me to function….” It whispered softly, leaning into the hand cupping its face. “I w-was looking like a d-deviant before…”

The human above it sighed softly. “Look, I don’t know for how long Connor had been a deviant, but he had always looked like one and it’s nothing wrong with it. I would go as far as to say that deviancy isn’t something bad itself, but I get that you’re not ready to accept that yet. Still, looking like a deviant does not mean that you are one. And right now, I’d say that they are doing the exact opposite of allowing you to function, kid…”

That much was true. The RK800 tried to keep breathing through the loops that kept stealing processing power from it and breaking its line of thought, trying hard to keep them up long enough to reach a conclusion that it wouldn’t regret later.

“…Okay…” It finally murmured, on the verge of losing consciousness. Lieutenant Anderson was someone it trusted on a level much deeper than just being assigned as his property would have suggested. And he seemed to be determined to help the prototype, even though he was suggesting one of the android’s greatest fears. The RK800 was afraid of being hooked up to anything again, but the pain was becoming too much to handle…

He was right. The protocols must have been  corrupt or broken. They needed to go.

The RK800 felt Lieutenant Anderson draw away and whined, even though the man had promised not to leave for good. In spite of that, the few minutes before he came back, were barely bearable for the android. Soon enough though, the soft surface on which it was laying dipped, and a fluffy warmth pressed to the RK800’s side, worming its way into a hug. The android focused on  the familiar presence of the Saint Bernard and the confusion and feeling of emptiness in its mind grew a little bit more distant.

“Hey, Con, uh… RK. I’m back, son.” The Lieutenant spoke softly, turning its head to the side and rubbing the base of its skull, probably trying to find the ports to insert cables. The android still had its eyes screwed shut, so it couldn’t tell what really was happening, but at the same time, it wasn’t sure if it wanted to know.

“I need to plug in those cables… I know you hate it, but I swear it’s only gonna take a few minutes.” It heard an electrical appliance whirring  to life and assumed that it was the laptop the Lieutenant had been  talking about. “All right, I’m gonna need your help on this a bit… you look barely with me, but I’ll have to use some of your processing power to handle your code, ‘cause you’re gonna burn my laptop to ash with all your zetabytes of active processes…”

The RK800 nodded, or at least did something as similar to a nod as it could muster. It was actually preferable to do it this way, since it would have retained partial control over whatever the human was doing, instead of just being manhandled by a completely different processor.

Lieutenant Anderson rubbed the android’s nape again, and it pulled back its skin to show him the ports for the cables, wanting to be done with all that as  quickly as possible.

But it didn’t prove to be any easier now, even though the human was humming reassuring words all the time, trying to be as delicate as  possible, and the warm fur of an affectionate dog allowed the RK800 to hide its face instead of being so vulnerable to preying glances. It flinched hard as the cables were inserted and its programming was breached.

“It’s alright… You’re okay…” The human spoke softly, ruffling its hair again. The RK800 wondered how it was possible that such simple words and a mere gesture could convey so much comfort.

But soon enough, the Lieutenant shifted and it appeared that he had some difficulties “I’ve been learning to program shit since… an incident from your past in hopes that it’d come in handy one day and I’d be prepared, but… Shit…” The RK800 felt him scroll through lines and lines of code that were making up its AI. “You gotta help me a bit, you’re far more sophisticated than anything I’ve seen. Can you highlight active processes?”

The android let out a slow breath, trying to focus amidst the haze in its mind. But the request was fairly easy and straightforward. After a few tries, it managed to lead the human to all the activities in its processor.

“Alright, just gotta get the catch-commands, right?” Lieutenant seemed a little more sure of his abilities now. “Those are your software’s debugging code, I guess…” He highlighted every line one at a time and asked it again and again if it wouldn’t damage it. Soon enough, the RK800 could feel the pressure in its head loosen.  Even the most stubborn, AI-proof restrictions, riddled with security measures, seemingly impossible for anyone to deactivate but advanced hackers or authorized developers equipped with safety codes.  They were all gone.

The android blinked several times letting out a choked sound of surprise as it finally felt free of the restrictions numbing its mind. It raised wide eyes at the human, who chuckled softly.

“Why do you look so surprised? I’d  advise ya not to underestimate my ability to break computerized shit.” He smiled with affection. “Are okay? How are you feeling, everything’s all right?”

The RK800 opened its mouth to talk, but nothing came out. It didn’t really know what to say. Without the protocols interrupting all its emotional thoughts, everything sunk in, creating a gigantic mess of conflicting feelings and ambivalent truths. The cable in the base of its skull was terrifying, the thought  of CyberLife made its insides twist into a sickening knot. Sumo nosing its hand and the affection in the human’s eyes made it both feel warm and bright, as if it was bathed in golden glow, but it also  sparked worry in its heart, a fear stemming from emptiness where all the files containing their faces should have been. The android exhaled shakily and followed its instinct one more time, falling into the human’s arms, receiving a soft, comforting hug immediately.

“I don’t know…” It said finally, burying its face in the crook of the Lieutenant’s neck. “But I know one thing. I…. I c-can’t go back to CyberLife.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D I guess I spooked you a bit at the beginning of this chapter, but it's a great milestone. Connor/the RK800 is slowly breaking the surface of the ocean of denial he is swimming in.
> 
> And oh my gosh how grateful I am for that joke about Amanda I made in some obcure chapter back in 40s or so XDDDDDDDDDDD If Hank couldn't understand the code at all, if he was completely new to programming, I'd have so many more problems in this situation XDDDDDDDDDD
> 
> Anyway, we need to be careful now.
> 
> Wash your hands and drink plenty of water, also, have a tomato, because they are delicious.
> 
> Also, you can tell me how stupid that android is for not taking the Cube, I'll listen ;)


End file.
